The Means of Mutation

Chernobyl forest winter time. On courtesy of bbc.co.uk

Is the exclusion zone a radioactive death trap or a haven for wildlife?

Performing a simple internet search on Chernobyl wildlife, you will undoubtedly find many article praising the Zone for its richness of species, but taking a closer look at it all, it is not at all what it seems. 

The popular idea of that the Chernobyl area has turned into a large natural zoo of eastern Europe may derive from repeated sightings of wolves, boars and wild Prewalski's horses because it is indeed true that these creatures roam freely in the zone but if spending just a brief thought on it all, it only means one thing; that wild animals tend to seek places uninhabited by humans. It doesn't mean that they're not affected by radiation. 

After the Chernobyl disaster, different kinds of research have been performed, in order to determined exactly how the fallout has affected flora and fauna but even to this day, 28 years later, it is not fully known how. As I have written in previous posts, we don't even know enough about how concentrated amounts of radiation affect living organisms to be able to understand the full extent. 

A relatively common belief is that the shorter the life span of a species, the faster it adapts to changed environment but if so would indeed be the case, all the insects, rodents and smaller birds of Chernobyl would be fully adapted by now, but obviously they are not. We find an example in a study made by made by a team of researchers from Norway, France and the US (led by Professor Timothy Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, and Dr Anders Möller from the University of Paris-Sud, France.), concerning small birds of Chernobyl. The study was performed on 550 individuals from 48 different species of birds and the result showed that the average size of the brains of those birds was about 5% smaller than those of birds not residing in the exclusion zone. The conclusion was that this was a direct effect of radiation, and this divergence was especially significant concerning younger individuals. Stressed birds have the ability to change the size of some of their organs in order to become less sensitive to difficult environmental conditions and especially migrating birds that travel long distances often shrink certain organs as they use up energy. The brain is however the last organ to be sacrificed, according to Möller and Mosseau, which pretty much leaves increased background radiation as the only plausible reason. 

However, the research of Anders Möller and Timothy Mosseau doesn't stand uncontradicted. The Ukrainian biologist Sergey Gaschak who was a former colleague of Möller and Mosseau, implies that their research is all wrong. "You can measure an animal 10 times and 10 times you can get a different result" Gaschak said in an interview for the magazine "Wired" in 2011. Further on, Gaschak claimed that his data was distorted and misinterpreted by Möller and Mosseau, but there was no description of how, other than that Möller stated that Gaschak didn't want his name published on the paper. We face something implying a personal drama between the researchers, so I'll leave the part of Sergey Gaschak with the words that his dream concerning the Zone turning into a permanent healthy wildlife reserve may, due to radiation, be quite impossible in the near future. I will get back to Gaschack once I've investigated him further. 

Let's get personal for a brief moment. During my stay in the zone, I noticed that the mosquitos seemed to be significantly larger than average mosquitos, but also that their bites barely itched at all. Mind you, these are subjective observations so I cannot grant the accuracy of this, but still - may it be that radiation has affected the substances of the female mosquitoes' saliva that normally cause an itch? Personally, I cannot tell whether it's like that or not, but one thing I know for sure is that getting bitten by a Chernobyl mosquito won't hurt you more than getting bitten by a "normal" mosquito. The exposure to radiation has hurt the species rather than turning them into mutated threats to other species. So no - Spiderman could not happen in real life. 

Other studies, performed by Timothy Mosseau has shown that the forests around Chernobyl aren't decaying the way they should. We're talking about the same forests that suffered heavy fallout; that were cut down, but still grew back, heavily radiated. The reason why the process of decay has become inefficient is, according to Mosseau, that even the decomposers, insects, microbes and fungi, are affected by the increased levels of  radiation.

The Red Forest is now composed largely by dead trees, but they are not decaying:  

“Apart from a few ants, the dead tree trunks were largely unscathed when we first encountered them. It was striking, given that in the forests where I live, a fallen tree is mostly sawdust after a decade of lying on the ground.” 

Timothy Mosseau with his samples. From this article. 

says Timothy Mosseau in an interview with the Smithsonian. You may read the full article here.
Mosseau takes up a direct problem regarding the Zone, as well as he takes us back to an old question: Exactly how has the high levels of radiation affected the flora of Chernobyl, in other matters than killing and deforming them? Cases of gigantism of trees, mushrooms and berries have been reported, but how does that correspond to the truth? We do know that flora reacts differently to radiation than fauna. We know that for example soybean plants in the zone do not only produce fertile seeds, but has evolved to protect themselves against radiation and by now we also know that  at least some kinds of fungi are highly capable of feeding on radiation. Plants and fungi may have an innate defense or ability to cope with radiation, but of that we still know too little about these things to get to proper overall conclusion. Effects are probably varying from species to species concerning flora, and only further research will make us wiser.

Day of the Liquidators

Today, the 14th of December, it's the official day of the liquidators.

In 1986, over 650 000 people, most of them men, helped in trying to alleviate the effects of the Chernobyl disaster, working to avoid that the effects grew into larger, uncontrollable proportions and to clean up the big mess afterwards. Many of them died a slow, painful death. 

So let's all spend our thoughts on, and give our thanks to all those men without whom we would live in a very different world.

To all the brave firefighters, soldiers, pilots, drivers, sanitary workers, people who worked on the roof of the fourth reactor, those who built the sarcophagus, and to everyone else participating (no one shall be forgotten); there are really not enough words to express the importance of your work, but the whole world owes you a big

THANK YOU!

Letter from Europe

Scanned image of the letter,

from the website of the 
Ukrainian Association of Chernobyl
Veterans.

You can only discuss the matter of Chernobyl to a certain point before the political aspect becomes inevitable. 

Ukraine's Chernobyl victims are already more than familiar with the fact that their own government will not come to their aid, and have thus began to turn elsewhere in hope of gaining support. 

On the 22nd of October this year, when the outlook on a, much discussed and debated, future cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union were still relatively bright, Volodimyr Proskurin and Natalya Tselovalnichenko from the Ukrainian Association of Chernobyl Veterans wrote an eight pages long letter to the EU Delegation of Ukraine in which they explained the worsened situation of the victims of Chernobyl, [i.e the liquidators, soldiers and others who are incident to the low pension issued by the government] which was followed by an almost direct plea to the European Court of Human Rights to take on their case against the Ukrainian government, as they reckon the situation to only become worse.  

"We ask for actions to be taken against the Ukrainian Government in order to restore the legal order of Ukraine, in respect of the people who are suffering from the Chernobyl disaster, according to the Law of Ukraine." wrote Proskurin and Tselovalnichenko, pointing to the decreasing support from the government, who are not fulfilling their part or even acting according to Ukrainian law. 

Volodimyr Proskurin and Natalya Tselovalnichenko received a reply to their proposal today, written by delegator  Jan Tombinski. The response to a letter written in the official language of Ukraine (which is Ukrainian, naturally) came in English and read such as follows:

"Dear Mr. Proskurin 

Dear Ms. Tselovalnichenko 

Thank you for your letter to the EU Delegation to Ukraine in which you raised the issue of the problems with respect of social rights of person who suffered from the Chernobyl disaster. We have taken note of your information and regret about the difficult situation of those people.
Please be informed that the European Union has repeatedly and regularly asked the Ukrainian side to fulfill ECHR judgements. 

The EU has always and will continue to keep the respect of human rights and the rule of law in the focus of its relations with Ukraine. The implementation of the judicial reform aimed to bring the legal framework and functioning of the judicial system of Ukraine to European standards has been among EU's key conditions for deepening its relations with Ukraine, namely for the signing of the Association Agreement. Therefore Ukraine's further integration with the EU would certainly improve the situation in many spheres including protection of the rights of Ukrainians within the national justice system. 

Yours faithfully, 

Jan Tombinski"

What a splendid example of bureaucracy. And with another dash of "healthy sarcasm" I would like to point out the obvious, which is how Jan Tombinski more or less underlines that if only Ukraine's relationship with the European union deepens, there may eventually be support to expect in the future. However, he doesn't seem to have done his homework properly. Ukraine is a member state of the European Council since 1995 and thus entitled to approach the European Court of Human Rights with proposals. 

As I do not know anything about Mr. Tombinski's motives supporting his letter, I will refrain from trying to explain them, but indeed his writings can be interpreted in many different ways - none of them to the favor to the EU Delegation of Ukraine.

Unsweetened Truth

Here in “the west”, we have more or less always been spoiled with information and nowadays everything is revealed, even information that we neither want nor need, but the citizens of the USSR did for sure not enjoy the same luxury and even after the fall of the great union, it shall not be taken for granted that the old secrets are revealed. “What I am about to tell you, will never be published by any Ukrainian paper” says 46 years old Sergey Nikolaevich Bondarenko, a former liquidator who was one of the soldiers who participated during the evacuation of Pripyat. “Nor will they talk about it on television. The official truth is a sweetened up version presented with the courage  and pain of our people, but the real truth is too inconvenient for our government, and therefore it’s important not to shut up.”

S. Bondarenko with comrades.
Please do not copy. 

When the alarm sounded, at the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant in April 26th, 1986, Sergey Bondarenko was 19 years old and situated with his army unit, the special motorized military units MVD USSR in the Kiev Red Order Decorated Military District. At dawn, the unit №5403 SMCHS was alerted. The soldiers were put in fully armoured vehicles, each and every one of them carrying their private service weapons, gas masks, shields, helmets, vests and grenade This was all by the means of preventing riots and this was all that they knew for the first period of time. No one knew what was going on or where they were going, until the senior officers received their orders to without any delay set course to Chernobyl, a small town in the outskirts of the Kiev region. 

On their way to Chernobyl, the path of the 5403rd unit was crossed by other parts of the Kiev Garrison, which had also been alerted, and five hours after the first explosion at the 4th reactor complex, Bondarenko’s unit arrived in Pripyat. 

“The first day after the accident was a mess” says Sergey Bondarenko. “No one knew what to do and the residents of Pripyat were not informed about anything and thus suspected nothing. Only military chemists carrying dosimeters were silently scanning the neighbourhood to measure the radiation levels.”

The soldiers were given indicators to be carried, but these had expired and could not properly measure the airborne radiation. Sergey Bondarenko tells further from his memory:

“ On the night of 26 April 1986 the orders from the chief of intelligence were for our entire division to be taken 20 kilometers from the present location and to the forest of the river Pripyat, to rest. There on the river bank, we met with employees from the Chernobyl NPP, who as if nothing had happened, were fishing. To our questions about what happened in Chernobyl, they gave evasive answers, explaining that it is only just simply a standard situation and that the consequences were under special control.”

Shortly after that, Bondarenko and his comrades were forced to relocate again, as they were informed of that the levels of radiation on this site were too high. That evening the soldiers were given a not very solid dinner consisting of one can of minced sausages, two slices of bread and four sugar cubes. It became necessary to sleep but there were no place to sleep nearby the forest and there were no tents, so it was decided to sleep in the open air, fully exposed to the radioactive fallout. 

“Our camping place was in a radioactive forest, and 19 years old soldiers were washing themselves in a river contaminated by heavily radioactive metals”

Then the evacuation of Pripyat began. The instructions were to evict the population in six hours (the procedure demanded eight hours) and Pripyat was divided in different sectors, each to be taken care of by groups of soldiers wearing their usual uniforms. I ask Sergey Bondarenko why they weren’t wearing protection suits and his answer is very concise - if the military men would have been wearing protective suits or masks, the residents would have understood that something was wrong, and it was important to avoid outbreaks of panic.  Each entrance of each aparment block had its own bus waiting for the residents and the main task of the soldiers was to inform people to bring their documents and food enough to last for a few days. The evacuation would only be for three days, the residents were told. But when they left, their houses were immediately sealed.  Sergey Bondarenko recalls the horrible sight of watching the people leave their homes. Many were carrying for them important things, and even such things as TV-sets and carpets, but everything had to be left by their homes. Children were crying and people were upset - the evacuation of Pripyat was only relatively calm. 

“All through the night of April 27th, we guarded a deserted city” tells Sergey Bondarenko “My comrades and I were on patrol until the morning. The town was dead. Only single apartments were lit up and on some of the balconies, dogs were howling at the moon. We had to check up on these apartments. There were people who had permission to remain in the town - plant workers, policemen, doctors and military [officers]. We went to check on the rooftops and saw the ominous glow from the power station. It continued to burn even on this third day” 

The soldiers were almost completely cut off from the world outside what would become the 30 kilometers wide exclusion zone, but their pocket radio receivers still managed to receive transmissions from the radio program of Seva Novgorodtsev, “Seva Oborot”, which allowed them to take part of BBC transmissions in Russian in matters of new as well as music. And it was through the BBC that the soldiers first found out about what had happened at the ChNPP; days before it was officially announced on Soviet TV.  

On the 30th of April came the orders to leave the Chernobyl zone and return to Kiev.  Before the departure, the soldiers were shown formal gratitude for the evacuation of the village and protection of its inhabitants. After that, arrived a truck loaded with water tanks, so that 150 soldiers could wash up after their duty in the zone. Everything was polluted, and their uniforms were buried by the roadside. Documents and personal belongings were taken away and not to be returned until the arrival in Kiev. 

In Kiev the members of the units were set in quarantine. Visitors were prohibited. If parents or relatives still came to visit, they could do so from a two floors difference. The soldiers were not allowed to tell anything about where they had been or what they had done, and to make sure that no one made a slip of the tongue, there were intelligence officers surveiling it all Also letters were searched. Every day these liquidators had to go to leave blood samples at the hospital, whilst the doctors would not respond to any questions.  After three months, the quarantine was lifted. 

“Practically everyone who were in the zone developed dermatitis” says Sergey Bondarenko “There were cases of soldiers fainting, but that wasn’t paid attention to. On the identification cards (of the Soviet Armed Forces) they wrote the radiation doses received to 10 Roentgen for soldiers and 25 for the officers. In 1996 they wrote me up for 43,6 Roentgen. Whence this figure come, I do not know.”

In 1996, Sergey Nikolaevich Bondareko was taken in for the first of the operations on his thyroid glands. There was a tumor detected, as a long term result of the exposure of radiation. Bondarenko was given a so called Group-2 pension for disabled, and granted 2000 Ukrainian gryvnas per month (approx. €180), which is barely enough for a month’s supply of food if you have a family.  These are horrible conditions to live on, especially if facing a permanent health condition. Many liquidators were initially offered a large pay, good pensions, cars and other bonuses if they took on the life demanding tasks of cleaning up after the disasters, but they received nothing; their own country turned its back on them and they’re still struggling to be allowed to live a decent life.

Sergey Nikolaevich Bondarenko, speaking for
the liquidators. Please do not copy.

Much more remains, of what Sergey Bondarenko told me, and much remains to be said and done about the situation of the surviving liquidators and about those who are gone. But let us focus on those who are alive.  Sergey Bondarenko is still fighting for the rights of the liquidators. To be treated as the human beings they are. 

How To Dismantle An Atomic Disaster

Photo: SSE ChNPP

Whenever looking at a photo from Chernobyl, it's there - the 75,5 meters tall, 9 meters wide stack of the fourth reactor's block, and constant reminder of the perhaps biggest distaster of human kind. But very soon it will be gone.

In the end of October the dismantling procedure, carried out by the Ukrtransbud Corporation, was initiated and the parts separated from the stack were temporarily resting in the turbine hall of block 3,  before  being transported to a specially prepared site where they will be taken apart. 

The reason behind this operation is the New Safe Confinement. The arch formed outer construction, under which the dismantling of the entire fourth block will take place, is being built on the side of the reactor building and will on railway tracks eventually be slid over said building and encase its radioactive content, and in order for that to work out, the stack naturally has to be removed. 

For those of you out there, who against most odds may not know about the New Safe Confinement (NSC, previously known as "The Shelter Project") it is being constructed to cover up the leaking Sarcophagus which started breaking apart only 10 years after having been built. Within the no longer overly protective walls of the Sarcophagus hides several tens of tons of radioactive waste being the result of the active fuel of the fourth reactor decaying. If the 2000 tons heavy reactor lid, now resting as a half closed eyelid on top of the reactor, would crash down as a consequence of not only the decaying of the Sarcophagus, but also the very building it contains, it would most likely lead to a collapse of the entire structures and those tens of tons of radioactive waste would all of the sudden lay open to be swept away by the winds in all possible directions. However, the NSF can not do anything about the radioactivity other than preventing it from being spread further. 

Dismantled stack parts. Photo: SSE ChNPP.

During the dismantling of the stack of the fourth unit, frequent monitoring of radiation levels are performed and the entire dismantling work is calculated to be done by the 10th of December this year.

The news concerning the initiated dismantling have been greeted in different ways. Many draws a sigh of relieve, reassured that there will be something covering up all that radioactive matter, whilst others belive that it's all just a curtain to cover up the disaster itself, but the question is whether it at all is possible to forget, or even ignore, such a breakdown as that of Chernobyl; one that will affect parts of the world for hundreds, even thousands (Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,100 years, remember) of years to come?

No it isn't. It's easier to forget those who helped preventing it becoming an even greater disaster ...isn't it?

The Break is Over

I left you with a piece of history, not announcing the forthcoming break that I would have to make due to critical lack of time and I didn't plan to resume my maintenance of this blog until December but late events, or rather news that recently have come to me from different directions, have given me a reason to pick up the writings sooner. Because the changes concerning the Zone wait for no one.

The Slide Doors of the Zone

First of all I'd like you to refresh your memory by readin this post about the closing of the Zone.

As I reported at that point, the ban would be due till October this year. October has now passed with quite a large margin so exactly what are we looking at now? To put it shortly, just another mess that constitutes the administration of the Chernobyl Zone, but here are some further details.

The ban was not lifted in October, and over the last two weeks every request to enter the Zone has been officially denied. The tours from local travel agencies and hotels were the first to disappear from the list of who would be granted entrance to the Zone, and this happened even before October, with some exceptions. The conditions back then were that only journalists and scientists would be allowed, but lately the restrictions have come to affect journalists as well. 

But how come then that at the same time, within this time span of two weeks, people who are neither journalists or scientists have been allowed into the Zone, when others who already had their documents of permission signed and granted had these permissions withdrawn at the very day of their journey? Journalists and environmental architects were even stopped at the first checkpoint and sent back to Kiev, so again how come that some people are granted access and others not? This has happened for sure and to that question there can only be a limited number of answers of which the first is that it is all about a matter of contacts - If you know the right persons, you will always have access to the Zone no matter what, but from my side this is only speculation and I do not encourage anyone to adopt a conspiratorial way of thinking regarding this matter.

The other explanation is what shows on the surface - nothing less than the headless and unstructured way of the local government to administrate the Chernobyl matters, or as one of my sources put it:

"It changes from day to day, depending on so many idiotic reasons and on who makes the decisions."

Furthermore, they decided to fire almost all the long term employed Chernobyl guides; men that have been working in the Zone for years and who are very familiar with all the places withing the 30 kilometer radius. They have been replaced with young guides who may know the English language but nothing about the Zone.


We have now, again, learnt that Chernobyl is a disaster, but not necessarily always only in a nuclear matter. 

New horizons

These days research craves more time and effort then it allows me to write here. Today, I cannot provide you with any articles or news as I'm currently going back in history on many different levels concerning all this. What I can give you is another update of what has recently happened in the process.

Of my exhibition only  a few days remain. On Sunday I'll be dismantling it all. The response this far has been only positive but I am very disappointed concerning the Gothenburg City Library's way of handling things so I am not likely to exhibit there again in this way. 

Anders Markgren, assistant information officer at the Forsmark NPP, did not respond to my message. I will have to phone him.

I have taken the book project into further concideration and have started to look for publishers to support this future part of the over all Chernobyl project. Next week we'll have the annual Book and Library fair here in Gothenburg. It's the largest event in Sweden concerning this area and almost all publishers, major as well as minor will be there exhibiting. And so will I, in matters of hunting for those publishers. My hopes are not too high, but if someone get hooked it's just a bonus because no matter what I'll go through with this. I'm not going comersial; merely trying to raise an interest.

Perhaps joint efforts with a likeminded. The picture has changed.

Letter from Hans Blix

H. Blix (middle) at the ChNPP in 1987

Regular readers are already aware of the fact that I some time ago decided to contact Hans Blix, the former chairman of IAEA, but those of you who missed out on that part may read about it here.

Last week I finally got around to write that letter I had had in mind since late August. I sent it with regular mail, rather than calling or writing to any official work address in order not to come off as imposing and also in order to make sure to be noticed. A digital message can easily be ignored or forgotten, but these days a nicely articulated, hand made (I cannot say "hand written" as I did use a printer) catches and demands more attention. 

Today I received a reply. Having put down my contact information in matters of residential address, phone number and e-mail address, it was an easy thing for Hans Blix to simply respond by e-mail, and I was happy to receive this message because even though he cannot afford the time nor effort to get into detail with me concerning Chernobyl, he provided me with very useful information and pointers to where to direct further questions. 

Hans Blix wrote to me: 

"I have my hands overflowing with work regarding questions of disarmaments and the future of nuclear power and thus I'm not prepared to aid you..." "...At this point I'm not  involved in the questions concerning the causes or consequences of the accident, only when it comes to the Shelter project..."

The man is admirable. At the age of 84, he's still working and still dedicated to it. 

I will not hide my slight disappointment concerning not getting the opportunity of a thorough Q & A with Hans Blix, but as I didn't expect to get an answer at all but still received a long and elaborate e-mail, I really cannot complain as it's very useful for me and my continued research. It's a push forward. This has made paths branch further and I intend to investigate every stray.

The Children of Chernobyl - Part III

Okay, let's get down to business, shall we. 

14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the UNSCEAR (United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Nuclear Radiation) report of 2000, it is said that there were no stated indications of the Chernobyl fallout's effect on children, spare from a theoretical view. Maybe this report has been revised since then, but if you start reading this at page 497, you will discover the opposite and five years later, USCEAR reported about 6000 cases of thyroid cancer cases amongst children who in one way or another were exposed to the radioactive fallout from the destroyed 4th reactor. In this text I explain why the thyroid glands of young individuals are extra sensitive to readioactive exposure. Iodine-131 has a tendency to be stored in milk from mammals. This includes cow milk and goat milk as well as the milk from human females. As children need milk for the development of skeleton and teeth, Iodine contaminated milk consitutes a health danger, but that's not all. The isotope of Strontium, Strontium-90 resembles Calcium (milk is rich on Calcium) and goes straight to the bone in the very same way. Strontium-90 increases the risk or bone growth retardation when it comes to young individuals and may cause skeleton cancer based in the bone marrow for human individuals all ages. 

By 2005 UNSCEAR, even though having admitted the 6000 cases of thyroid cancer, still states that:

"...there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the exposed populations. Neither is there any proof of other non-malignant disorders that are related to ionizing radiation. However, there were widespread psychological reactions to the accident, which were due to fear of the radiation, not to the actual radiation doses.
There is a tendency to attribute increases in the rates of all cancers over time to the Chernobyl accident, but it should be noted that increases were also observed before the accident in the affected areas. Moreover, a general increase in mortality has been reported in recent decades in most areas of the former Soviet Union, and this must be taken into account when interpreting the results of the accident-related studies."

One year later, this is contradicted by UNICEF. The deputy director at the time, Kul Gautam, stated that: 

"One thing is absolutely clear. Increased incidence of childhood thyroid cancer caused by radioactive Iodine fallout has been the most dramatic health impact of Chernobyl. There are over 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer affecting the ‘Chernobyl generation’ of children. But cancer is only the tip of the iceberg. Widespread iodine deficiency in the vicinity of Chernobyl and other parts of Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine is leading to a whole generation of children growing up potentially brain-damaged."

In Gautam's statement, compared to the report dealt with here, it's all focusing on the effects of radiation on fetuses and the possible retardation of brain development but that is perhaps one of the least risks. At least compared to the unknown number of cases of leukemia, various kinds of leukepenia and skeleton deformations. 
UNICEF as well as UNSCEAR may have been correct, but still rash in some of their conclusions, as most of the defections cannot be seen in the first generations but in Belarus - that received a large part of the Chernobyl fallout, there's been over 10 000 confirmed cases of thyroid cancer amongst children, 25 years after the accident, and we'll see these numbers increase in all the affected areas of the former Soviet Union and Europe for the next decades to come. 


I deliberately avoid stating more numbers as these are unknown and sources continue to contradict each other and I'm not looking to upset people with shocking images, but the main disorders and defects tens of thousands of children suffer from as a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster are thyroid cancer, leukemia and other forms of cancer related to blood and skeleton. Many children born just before, and after the disaster in the fallout areas have problems with their lungs, heats, immune system, and they will never recover. 

The Children of Chernobyl - Part II

Let's continue this subject with something quite funny; funny in a very sarcastic way that is, but first some facts.

There are  theories that fetuses in the wombs of women exposed to highered levels of radiation are at the risk of being damaged in a way that causes mental retardation (amongst other defects). Even though I've previously listed is as more or less a known fact in this article, there are still no concrete evidence for such a statement. Being exposed to extreme levels of radiation may cause damage and disturbance to the central nervous system of an adult human but generally receiving highered levels of radiation will not affect the brain of a physically grown up individual as the brain cells eventually cease to divide. However, as it's known that young not fully evolved brains take greater damage from substances such as drugs and alcohol (due to still being vulnerable in the process of development), we can also assume that the brain of a fetus that through its mother is exposed to radiation will take more damage than  its mother. This far it's all correct.

In 2007, an American published report was made concerning 560 000 children born in Sweden between the years of 1983 and 1988,  apparently based on the research of Swedish scientists at the Stockholm University. They assumed that because the academic performance of the children still in uterus during the time of the fallout, "was generally weaker", it must be directly connected to the radioactivity. 

This may all seem logical at a first glance, but studies made on children born after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs show that quite high doses of radiation received are required to cause actually retardation: Of 100 children, as fetuses exposed to 1 Sv (100 R), 40 would turn out mentally retarded, but with lower exposure the risk  decreased. It's assumed that there's even a threshold between 100 and 200 mSv where the risks are eliminated. This is however not yet completely proven, but even if we assume that this is a fact the pregnant women living in the parts of Sweden that received the most downfall, did not receive even close to that much. According to studies made by the Swedish radiation safety authorities, the highest increased doses (received by less than 1000 individuals) were no more than 2 mSv. The major part of the Swedish population (approximately 70%) recieved less than an increased 0,04 mSv in the year of  1986. Adding all this together it's a riddle where the previously mentioned scientists got their results from. It seems to be the same kind of media appealing fraud as the claims of increased rates of cancer cases in Sweden due to the Chernobyl disaster, which has no solid grounds to rest on whatsoever.

This is an example of how angles can be twisted depending on who is taking the picture. In other parts of Europe, the direct oppsite is claimed: There are absolutely no effects on the children.

Next up I'll refute that as well. 

Correnspondence and Encouraging and Series of Events

 I went back to the library today, to attend the no known exhibition and found a note in the guestbook reading: 

"Awesome you who tell the truth - the way it should be"

This sincerely brought warth to my heart and will be added as fuel to what makes me proceed with my work. 

I've been writing many letters lately.

Encouraging is always also when people take their work seriously.

As mentioned in this post, I very recently found out that there's still a Swedish organisation caring for children of Chernobyl. I choose the word "still" because when I was visting the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev there were, as a part of the exhibition, brochures in Swedish, encouraging donations for supporting summer camps for Chernobyl children. These pamphlets were from the late 80's and I cannot recall ever having seen anything like that here. Thus, I was happily surprised when the secretary of information at Tjernobylbarnens Vänner sent me a reply to my message this soon. What surprised me is the fact that this organisation is only 6 years old and has nothing to do with what I saw in Kiev, but even more was I pleased to see that there are people who care not out of tradition, but out of their hearts. Every summer since 2005 they have arranged camps for up to 32 Ukrainian children between the ages of 6 and 15, all suffering health consequenses from the Chernobyl disaster.

A Swedish trade is to have a bad conscience and to feel guilty. Or is it rather about big hearts with a certain sense of taking on responsibility? I honestly, don't know, but to mind is brought the efforts of Liutenant Colonel Vladimir Michailovich Maksimchuk.

Vladimir M. Maksimchuk

Maksimchuk was one of the Chernobyl firefighters who attended not at the night of the disaster, but when there again was a large danger at hand. On the 32rd of May in 1986 sources indicate there that another fire had started at the NPP. The fire rapidly approaced the engine room of the 4th reactor, which was full pipes containing hydrogen gas. Again there was a risk of thermal explosion and Vladimir Maksimchuk and his men were sent in to put out the fire. They could only work firve at the time, for no more than ten minutes each, but Maksimchuck himself stayed close to the area for 12 hours. He received more than 7 Sv/Gy of radiation and was later sent to be hospitalized. 

As soon as Vladimir Maksimchuk had begun to recover, he was sent back to duty. In 1989 he lead the extinguishing work at a chemical plant in the Luthianian city Ionave. In spite of being very ill from radiation sickness, Maksimchuk proceeded with his profession until 1994. In April 1994, the Swedish Red Cross offered the already deadly ill Maksimchuk medical treatment and he was to be transfered to Stockholm by helicopter but it was too late. On May 22nd in 1994 another hero of the big disaster died.

I keep asking myself about the reasons for Sweden to have shown such concern for Chernobyl, its victims and children. May it have something to do with the fact that this country was the very one to expose to the world that something wasn't quite as it should? May it be a way of saying that "as we discovered this mess, it's our duty to help cleaning it up"? Or rather because that they actually asked for help? 


Someone once said:

"Yellow and blue and Chernobyl and Poltava entwine Sweden and Ukraine forever" 

I'll resume my research concerning Chernobyl fallout effects on children and also concerning Vladimir Maksimchuk.

The Children of Chernobyl - Part I

"I didn't like your photos of the old toys. All abandoned like that it gives me the sense that the children who once played with them went the same way."

Withered and lost. 

So said my brother after having seen my photos from Pripyat. 

At the time, not knowing any better, I calmed him by saying that everything was all right because "the evacuation happened fast enough". 

May it be that the very process of evacuation went fast enough, but still that wasn't good enough. By the time of evacuation, 36 hours had already passed since the second explosion at the 4th reactor block at the ChNPP and since then, there had beel a fallout of Strontium-90, Caesium-137 and Plutonium-239; not to mention Iodone-131.

For a growing, still physically evolvling individual, the thyroid glands, where Iodine is stored, are extra sensitive to ionizing radiation, and already at the evacuation of Pripyat the childrens' thyroids were absorbing the radioactive Iodine like sponges. -Had the wind blown in a different direction, larger parts of Ukraine would have been affected, but instead Belarus took the big hit, receiving approximately 75% of the Chernobyl fallout and especially Strontium-90 and Iodine-131 would play a great part in the this far visible consequences.

In Poland, having been alerted concerning that something was boiling down like a dried kettle, they started to treat their children with a special fluid equivalent to the Iodine pills that are furtherly known, shortly after the Chernobyl breakdown, and concerning Pripyat, it was said that Iodine pills were given to the children before the evacuation but as I do not have a concrete reliable source for this information, I will not state this as a fact.

In Kiev, Iodine pills were handed out to the population 14 days after the accident as a symbolic act (which the people did not know much about), but of course in vain - Iodine-131 has a half life of only 8 days, so by then the pills were not of much use. 

The Romanian born Igor Kostin, was the only photographer in the world to document the early stages of the disaster. At the night of the accident he is said to have been alerted by a helicopter pilot who usually worked with Kostin concerning journalistic assignments, and the next day they would fly together, over the ChNPP. Some days after that, Kostin would be back in Kiev, photographing the May 1st celebrations, which he would later refer to as the Parade of Death. By then the radioactive cloud was all over Ukraine's capital.

The children of nothern Ukraine and Belarus were the first victims of the Chernobyl disaster, after the first firefighters and liquidators. An alarming increased number of thyroid cancer cases amongst children and young individuals from the concerned areas were reported up to 20 years after the disaster, but since then it has been hard to find any recent updates concerning the cases of illness, health defects and physical abnormalities.  

There are a number of organizations actively working to support the children of Chernobyl in different ways. Most of them are serious but my task of investigation concerning this is how they get their fundings and how they're used.

Searching for information, I found the Swedish Tjernobylbarnens Vänner (site in Swedish only) and I have written to them and asked about their work. The same concerning the Irish Chernobyl Children International. There are Belarusian and German equivalents as well, which I intend to get in touch with as well to try to get a more recent picture of the  biological outcome this far in matters of birth defects, chronic illness and so on. Some effects are yet to be seen. 

The Belarussian Yury Bandazhevsky, former director of the medical institute in Gomel performed experiments on hamsters, feeding pregnant female hamsters Caesium contaminated food. The result was severe birth defects on the unborn ebryos that were deformed or missing eyes or vital organs. Due to his research, Bandazhevsky was deprived of his work and employment and put under house arrest for several years. His wife, Galina Bandazhevskaya, has given an interview for the Chernobyl Children International. It's poorly translated and the writer's text is too much angled but there are still some few interesting facts.

The issues are piling up. As you can see, I have a lot of things to go through. The Chernobyl matters aren't only concentrated, but speread like the fallout and it will take time to clear the radioactove dust coulds.