The dark-skinned Chernobyl liquidator talks about the nuclear accident, the series and racism.
The DNA of children whose parents participated in the cleanup of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster does not have any additional damage, according to a group of scientists from six countries, including Russia and Ukraine.
They came to this conclusion during the first-ever study of the genes of children whose parents were exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster before they were conceived. All the children in the study were conceived after the disaster and born between 1987 and 2002. Their genomes were fully sequenced.
The number of offers should remain the same: “The search for mutations related to the effects of radiation on the parents was unsuccessful.” The research was published in the journal Science.
Hundreds of thousands of people participated in a massive effort to clean up the aftermath of the accident. Professor Jerry Thomas of Imperial College London has been studying radiation-induced tumors for many decades. In her words, the goal of the new study was to show: “even when people are exposed to relatively high doses of radiation compared to normal background levels, it does not affect their future children.” We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. End of story Podcast advertising
The research team was led by Professor Meredith Yeager of the National Cancer Institute in the USA. Researchers have studied the genomes of children of liquidators who participated in the cleanup of the contaminated area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as well as residents evacuated from the city of Pripyat and other settlements within a 70-kilometer radius of the plant.
One of the scientists, Dr. Steven Chanok, also of the National Cancer Institute, explains that this research involved entire families to compare the DNA of the father, mother, and child. “In this case, we were not looking at what happened to the children in the womb during the disaster, but we were looking for what we call de novo mutations,” he says. These are mutations that are present in a child but not in the parents. They occur randomly in the egg or sperm. Depending on where in the child’s DNA the mutation occurs, it may have no effect or it may become the cause of a genetic disease.
Before the disaster there were about 50 thousand people living in Pripyat. “In each new generation, there are about 50-100 such mutations, and they happen randomly,” Dr. Chanok explains. “In a sense, this is the building material of evolution. This is the mechanism by which changes occur in the population with each successive generation.”
“We looked at the father’s genome, the mother’s genome, and then the child’s genome, and we waited specifically for another nine months, expecting a signal, a change in the number of these mutations associated with parental radiation. We saw nothing.” According to scientists, this means that the effects of radiation on a parent’s body will not affect any children they may conceive or give birth to in the future. “Many people were afraid to have children after the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” the BBC professor said. “People were afraid to have children after the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant because they were afraid that the radiation exposure would somehow affect their child.” “This is very sad. And if we can prove that there is no such effect, there is hope that we will be able to allay these fears.
Elderly settlers still live in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Professor Thomas did not participate in the international study, but he and his colleagues have been studying cancer cases related to the Chernobyl disaster separately. They were mainly interested in thyroid cancer, as it is known that it occurred in at least five thousand people after the nuclear accident, most of whom were treated. After the accident, the Soviet authorities did not remove the irradiated milk from sale in the region; children drank it, receiving large doses of radioactive iodine emitted by the reactor. “Essentially, we found that there is no difference between thyroid cancer caused by accidental radiation exposure and any other cancer of this organ,” she says. “There is no such thing as a “demonic Chernobyl tumor” that is incurable. All of them can be treated like any other cancer,” the professor concludes.
After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a 40 thousand square kilometer exclusion zone was established around the plant.