“Unfortunately, there have simply been too few properly designed, impartial medical studies to prove much of anything about the disaster’s long-term health impact. One thing is certain, however. The nuclear industry—both in Ukraine and internationally—has done little to advance Chernobyl health research. In fact, even after the disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was quite a profitable enterprise until it was shut down in 2000. Throughout the 1990s, the company town Slavutich spent lavishly on festivals and free concerts with expensive foreign performers.
“In all that time, however, the plant did not provide a penny for cleanup works, scientific research, health care, resettlement costs, or compensation in connection with the disaster. Nor did it pay anything for the administration of the exclusion zone.”
—Mary Mycio, Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl (p. 200-1)
This is pretty appalling, and frankly, makes me rather angry.
