8% of the 116,000 children affected by the nuclear accident have thyroid problems

Residents of the zone contaminated by radiation have long accustomed themselves to being called guinea pigs. Sometimes calmly and sometimes bitterly, they claim researchers simply derive pleasure from trying to spot a certain disease in them and then suggest solid scientific theories on this basis. Undoubtedly, both sides could be right in a way, but it would be totally wrong to accuse the physicians and radiologists of painting a false picture. For example, it was proved recently that still in their mother’s womb children affected by radiation display a reduced nonverbal intellect score, while those born in 1986-1988 form a group that shows the greatest impairment of intellectual development. Other researchers advance no less pessimistic hypotheses. They claim on the basis of experiments on animals that as many as half the girls born at the time of the accident run the real risk of remaining barren.

Consider another sad — but not entirely new — conclusion. The question is about the relationship between the radiation dose and the psychic state of children and teenagers. On September 6, Ukrainian and US researchers made public the exact results of a screening initiated by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Consortium of US Partner Organizations.

In 1998 these organizations formally launched the Chernobyl Childhood Illness Program. Since then, Ukraine’s five most affected oblasts (Kyiv, Rivne, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, and Volyn) has seen the establishment of rehabilitation centers each of which acts as a coordination body for a mass checkup of children and teenagers. The centers have employed mobile units that included ultrasonic screening specialists, endocrinologists, and psychologists. 116,000 persons born 1980 to 1988 have been checked. Incidentally, physicians and psychologists have been putting special emphasis on the birth dates of those tested, for it was formerly considered that the risk group included only those born during or soon after the disaster.

The results cause alarm. As many as 2000 teenagers displayed various pathologies of the thyroid, mainly so-called nodular tumors. Although 70% of the latter were fewer than ten millimeters in size, Professor Thomas Foley, who presented the results, thinks it necessary to heed researchers who claim that even such tiny nodules could in time turn into malignant tumors. In addition, he came to the conclusion after the study that irradiation causes pathologies in all the iodine-containing tissues, i.e., the thyroid, mammary, salivary, and gastric glands, a clear indication that women living in the contaminated areas (as well the girls born shortly before and after the accident) run a very high risk of breast cancer.

Nor were the psychological screening program results announced by Doctor Iryna Hrushayeva encouraging. Measuring the children’s condition by the depression scale and then checking the results by individual interviews, the psychologists found pathological depression in 30% of the children and teenagers, mostly girls (77%). 354 individuals had tried to commit suicide, while 813 had been constantly haunted by suicidal thoughts. The psychologists had to offer consultations to almost a fourth of all those tested on the spot because nobody had ever spoken with them about their problems before. To be fair, this mostly applied to residents of small towns and villages: the teenagers feared that undesirable information about them would spread among their acquaintances.

Another interesting find was relationship between the somatic and the psychological in the children: 12% of those tested affected with thyroid disease also suffered from pathological depression. In Ms. Hrushayeva’s opinion, it is far more difficult to address the latter because many cities and villages just do not have psychologists and social workers. In especially difficult cases, the children were taken to a summer camp, where specialists tried to draw them out of their crisis situation by way of optimism-inspiring exercises, such as “what made my life so good” and “how I can be good to my family.” Incidentally, about the latter. The tests showed that depression in children and teenagers had been mostly caused by family troubles. 20% have one unemployed family member, 12% suffer from serious material problems, 25% have no father, and 15% no mother.