An increased frequency of structural chromosome aberrations in persons present in the vicinity of Chernobyl during and after the reactor accident. Is this effect caused by radiation exposure?

Title: An increased frequency of structural chromosome aberrations in persons present in the vicinity of Chernobyl during and after the reactor accident. Is this effect caused by radiation exposure?

Author: G. Stephan, U. Oestreicher

Reference: Mutation Research/Genetic Toxicology, Volume 223, Issue 1, May 1989, Pages 7–12

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0165-1218(89)90057-8

Keywords: Chernobyl; Chromosome aberration; Human; Radiation effect

Abstract: About a week after the reactor accident in Chernobyl, a number of German citizens returned to the Federal Republic of Germany from different places of residence in the U.S.S.R. Chromosome analyses of these individuals show a surprisingly significant increase in dicentric chromosomes in comparison to the laboratory control. Acentrics are nearly twice as frequent as dicentrics. Centric rings are also in evidence. Chromatid breaks do not significantly differ from the control with the exception of 1 place of residence.

The frequency of aberrations is too high to be induced by absorbed doses calculated physically or by modelling techniques. So far, no explanation is available for the discrepancy – a factor of about 100 – between calculated absorbed doses and the measured biological effect.

ＵＲＬ：http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0165121889900578

Chernobyl: the inevitable results of secrecy

Title: Chernobyl: the inevitable results of secrecy

Author: Alexander Shlyakhter and Richard Wilson

Reference: Public Understand. Sci. 1251-259

Keywords: USSR, health effects

Abstract: The Chernobyl accident was the inevitable outcome of a combination of bad design, bad management and bad communication practices in the Soviet nuclear industry. We review the causes of the accident, its impact on Soviet society, and its effects on the health of the population in the surrounding areas. It appears that the secrecy that was endemic in the USSR has bad profound negative effects on both technological safety and public health.

URL: http://www.broadinstitute.org/~ilya/alex/92a_chernobyl_secrecy.pdf

Nuclear Bashing in Chernobyl Coverage: Fact or Fiction?

Title: Nuclear Bashing in Chernobyl Coverage: Fact or Fiction?

Author: Friedman, Sharon M.; And Others

Reference: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (72nd, Washington, DC, August 10-13, 1989)

Keywords: Broadcast Television, News, Nuclear Energy, Media Coverage, USSR

Abstract: Critics of coverage of nuclear power have charged that the media overemphasize the importance of nuclear accidents, encourage public fear, and omit information vital to public understanding of nuclear power and risk. Some also feel there is an anti-nuclear bias among reporters and editors. A study was conducted to determine if such charges were supported in the first two weeks of coverage of the Chernobyl accident. Coverage was analyzed in the “New York Times,” the “Washington Post,” the “Philadelphia Inquirer,” the “Wall Street Journal,” the Allentown (Pennsylvania) “Morning Call,” and on the evening newscasts of CBS, NBC, and ABC. Findings showed that (1) despite heavy coverage of the accident, no more than 25% of any newspaper’s or network’s coverage–often far less–was devoted to information on safety records, history of accidents, and current status of nuclear industries in various countries; (2) even though such information would be background information for a breaking news event, not enough was provided to improve the public’s level of understanding of nuclear power or put the Chernobyl accident in context; and (3) articles and newscasts balanced use of pro- and anti-nuclear statements, and did not include excessive amounts of fear-inducing and negative information, indicating that these newspapers and networks did not take advantage of the accident to attack or “bash” the nuclear industry or nuclear power in general. (Four tables of data and 20 notes are included.)

URL:http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED309443&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED309443

A semiotic analysis of the newspaper coverage of Chernobyl in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Finland

Title: A semiotic analysis of the newspaper coverage of Chernobyl in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Finland

Author: REBECCA KAUFMANN / HENRI BROMS

Reference: Semiotica. Volume 70, Issue 1-2, Pages 27–48, October 2009

doi: 10.1515/semi.1988.70.1-2.27

Keywords: news, media coverage, U.S.A, Soviet Union, Finland

Abstract: As a disaster, Chernobyl invaded the minds of the world’s citizens unlike any other. More than a volcano, a stock market crash, or a student riot, Chernobyl received news coverage second only to that received by out and out war. As the co-Director of the Center for War, Peace, and the News Media adduced: Ά nuclear accident is … a unique news event. Nothing else, short of a nuclear war, resembles it’. The American, Soviet, and Finnish press approached the uniqueness of the Chernobyl disaster in very different ways. While the American and Soviet news coverage lost perspective of what was truly at issue — a tragic nuclear accident — the Finnish news coverage threw few stones and tried to report the facts.

URL:http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/semi.1988.70.issue-1-2/semi.1988.70.1-2.27/semi.1988.70.1-2.27.xml

Coming to Terms with the Soviet Myth of Heroism Twenty-five Years After the Chernobyl’ Nuclear Disaster: An Interpretation of Aleksandr Mindadze’s Existential Action Movie Innocent Saturday

Title: Coming to Terms with the Soviet Myth of Heroism Twenty-five Years After the Chernobyl’ Nuclear Disaster: An Interpretation of Aleksandr Mindadze’s Existential Action Movie Innocent Saturday

Author: Johanna Lindbladh

Reference: The Anthropology of East Europe Review, Vol 30, No 1 (2012)

Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, Soviet Union, film, reception, Chernobyl’, nuclear accident, Mindadze, Innocent Saturday, myth of heroism, existentialism, Bakhtin, non-alibi in Being

Abstract: This essay presents an analysis of the Russian director Alexandr Mindadze’s feature film Innocent Saturday, released precisely 25 years after the Chernobyl’ accident in Ukraine.  In a comparative study between the Russian-speaking and non-Russian-speaking reception of the film, I will show that the philosophical dimension, depicting Chernobyl’ not as a “great” historical, technological event, but in terms of how it affected peoples’ minds and feelings, constitutes the main theme in the Russian reception, but is more or less absent in the non-Russian-speaking reception. Building upon this divergence in reception, I will further explore the theme of Soviet heroism in a hermeneutical analysis of the film. My conclusions are that Mindadze, in depicting a hero who “does not escape”, points towards the existential impossibility of “escaping from your own self”, thus challenging not only the rules of an action movie, but also the Soviet myth of heroism, still a politically intense debate in the former Soviet Union.

URL: http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/aeer/article/view/2002/1965