Chernobyl Heart

Following the nuclear accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, I was trying to find out more information about the impact of nuclear accidents, and so the obvious search term to use was Chernobyl.

On April 26th 1986, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Unkraine on the border with Belarus exploded launching 180 tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

400,000 were eventually evacuated from the area, and 2,000 villages were demolished, but as we see in this Academy Award winning documentary by Maryann DeLeo, that was by no means the end of the story.

The film is set in 2002 and follows Adi Roche, the founder of the Chernobyl Children’s Project International, as she tours through the region visiting children’s homes, hospitals and people still living in the area.

There has been enormous increases in thyroid cancer, congenital birth defects (up by 250%), and double hole in the heart defects, otherwise known as Chernobyl Heart.

Writing about the effects here will not get across the message so please take a deep breath and watch the film – it is shocking to say the least, but this is what we are all risking – even in developed countries – what to say of countries with a high dependence of nuclear energy, and an impossibly high safety standard to be kept, which even then may not be enough?

For now 99% of Belarus is contaminated from an explosion that happened 20 years earlier. Is this the sort of thing you are willing to gamble with?

If you would like to follow up and find out more about Adi Roche’s project, please visit the Chernobyl Children International website.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Novick’s work with the International Children’s Heart Foundation, this is a link to their website.

May all people doing good works around the world, and all those supporting them rejoice in their good deeds!