Have All the Consequences Been Liquidated?
The Repercussions of Chernobyl on Public Health
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Twenty years after the Chernobyl disaster, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organisation are trying to file Chernobyl away as a minor affair. “No cause for concern” is how they put it. Doctors and patients in the Chernobyl region see things very differently: The cancer rate has clearly increased; thyroid illness is more frequent; infant mortality has shot up; genetic defects and malformations are increasing. The worst affected are the “liquidators” and their children. There is no denying that this is due to the radiation that escaped into the atmosphere in the disaster’s aftermath.
(Osteuropa 4/2006, pp. 81–104)