But there are clues. These are found in the children. It is known that exposure to radiation can trigger genetic changes. It is also known that these changes occur within cells and that cells are particularly susceptible when they are dividing. This is the reason radiation therapy is effective in cancer treatment, a disease characterized by runaway, rapidly dividing cells.
Radiation kills the runaway cells and hopefully leaves other cells relatively untouched.
Children, their bodies a bubbling stew of dividing cells, are particularly susceptible to radiation, more so than adults, whose cellular activity is reduced with age to a tepid simmer. Since Chernobyl, the incidence of miscarriage among women in contaminated regions has risen from 5 percent to 20 percent. Average birth weights for newborns delivered by these women are down. And many of the babies are born sick. The effects of nuclear contamination continue as the children grow older.