30 Years Since Chernobyl Contamination Remains A Silent Threat

IVANKIV, UKRAINE - APRIL 01: Endocronologist Olga Shalivskaya uses an ultrasound device to monitor the thyroid gland of Yana Lukach, 7, at the polyclinic on April 1, 2016 in Ivankiv, Ukraine. Ivankiv district, an area inhabited by approximately 30,000 people, lies just south of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and researchers have found significantly higher rates of immune system deficiencies and heart rhythm disorders among children, higher rates of circulatory disease among adults and a high rate of death among working-age adults, especially due to cardovascular disease, than compared to Kiev region farther south and compared to years before the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Ivankiv district also shows a 100-fold increase in thyroid cancer rates from 1985-2010. Doctor Yuriy Bandazhevsky, who has led much of the research, sees caesium-137 released from the Chernobyl accident as the biggest threat, and says that local people get it into their bodies through food grown in the area and summer forest fires that release the radioactive isotope into the air. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)