Chernobyl Doctor Fact Checks the HBO Series (original) (raw)
[raspy breathing]
That guy's treated.
He's just gone.
He does look like someone really a painter,
or an artist was doing this
without any solid knowledge or experience.
[raspy breathing]
My name is Alla Shapiro.
I was one of the first medical responders
after Chernobyl accident.
[helicopter whirring]
I spent last 16 years working for the FDA
to develop drugs against radiation exposure.
Now I am going to review clips from Chernobyl HBO series.
Okay, let's watch.
In this clip, boss tells one of his subordinates
that if he is not going to follow his orders,
then he will be fired.
If the two of you disagree,
then you don't have to work here and you won't.
You won't work anywhere ever again, I'll see to it.
This clip is very realistic.
Approximately two months after the explosion,
I spent a total of about 30 days
examining patients who lived
in the most contaminated areas in Ukraine.
We were told very strictly
not to tell the population that anything is wrong.
Our job was to tell them that everything is good,
and if we say opposite then we will lose our jobs
and we would never get them back.
In this clip, a worker from the nuclear power station
starts bleeding shortly after the explosion.
[intense music]
[man groaning]
Hey!
This scene is not realistic.
Radiation will lead to bleeding
if patient developed acute radiation syndrome
with a bone marrow failure,
but this would occur in the first weeks,
never on the spot.
[dramatic music] [speaks in foreign language]
In this clip, population of Prypiat is evacuated by buses.
[speaks in foreign language]
People were told that they are leaving only for three days,
but they never came back.
Not all the buses came on time.
Children and adults were all outside their houses
waiting for the buses.
They were playing in the radioactive sand,
and the showers of radioactive particles
were falling on the ground.
I've heard this story from one of the mothers whose child
I treated two years after evacuation from leukemia.
In this clip, Ulana offers stable iodine to a secretary
to protect her from thyroid cancer.
Stable iodine will keep your thyroid
from absorbing radioactive iodine.
Take one a day for as long as they last.
Potassium iodide will protect from thyroid cancer
only if it's given in the right time.
It's not clear how soon after the exposure
Ulana offer the secretary to take iodine.
The maximum amount of time potassium iodine
would be effective is about 12 to 18 hours
after the exposure.
The Soviet government started handing potassium iodide
to children 10 days after the explosion,
and at that point it was a totally useless effort.
People went to the pharmacy
where potassium iodine was over the counter,
and not knowing the dose they just fed their children
with the pills.
If the dose or regiment is exceeded the normal,
it cause acute ulcers in the stomach.
In Kiev, I was called to the emergency room
where parents brought children bleeding from their stomach
due to incorrect dose of potassium iodide.
In this clip, the man is told to put on homemade armor.
We make these from lead scrap.
Put it on under your balls.
You ever go hunting?
No.
Well, today's your lucky day.
You, me, that ugly Armenian in the tent, Garo.
We do animal control.
Animal control?
Yeah they're radioactive,
so they have to go.
Lead is one of the most used metals
that protect from radiation,
and using this local armor
would help to protect local area.
Animals were highly contaminated
and nobody took care of them
to wash them off, so there was a fear
that they will spread the radiation around.
In this clip, Ulana goes to the library
and tries to obtain some technical information.
Yes?
I need to see the following documents.
They're listed as permission only.
[Secretary] Comrade?
[Man] She can have that one.
This is how Soviet government thought
less knowledge, more silence, and less panic.
My boss asked me to collect information
about radiation to make a presentation
in front of medical personnel
at the largest hospital in Kiev
just to give them the basic ideas
about radiation and what to expect,
how to treat patients.
Nobody had any training in radiation.
Neither of the medical school,
nor during our careers.
I entered the National Medical Library in Kiev
and stared in disbelief on the empty shelves with no books.
I asked the librarian to provide me some books or journals
about radiation, and the answer was
they received an order from above
to take all the books and journals off the shelves
that contain a word radiation.
In this clip, a nurse warns a pregnant woman
not to visit her husband.
Excuse me. Who are you?
What are you doing here?
[Lyudmilla] I have a pass.
You can't be here, it's not safe.
I am here to see my husband, Vasily Ignatenko.
He's a firefighter from Chernobyl.
[Nurse] I know who Ignatenko is, but you can't.
I have permission.
You can see him for 30 minutes, not a minute more.
And you cannot touch him in any way, do you understand?
Yeah.
Room 15.
You're not pregnant, are you?
No.
People with acute radiation sickness,
they are not radioactive.
They are not contagious to adults,
to pregnant women, or to children.
The firefighter did not wear his contaminated clothes
and was showered.
After these two, he would not be in contagious
or dangerous to anybody who is around him.
Get out, get out of here.
Let me go. Come on.
Let me go! Out.
[Lyudmilla] Stop it!
Stop it!
[Nurse] You let her in that room,
inside the plastic, touching him.
This false beliefs had a very dangerous outcome.
Many children were evacuated to Moscow,
and many families in Moscow who were offered
to host these children, they rejected
because they claimed
that these children are contaminated
or they call them dirty
and they don't want them in their household.
In this clip, Lyudmilla comforts
her dying, severely burned husband.
Stay.
No it's my time now.
That guy's treated.
He's just gone.
I don't think that this is a realistic
to have all this degree of burns
and coloring and intensity all over the body.
I did not work at the burn clinic,
however my colleagues who did work
in Moscow in hospital number six,
provided me with a pictures of radiation burns
and I never seen anything like portrayed in this.
These look like someone really,
you know a painter or artist
was doing this
without any solid knowledge or experience.
In this clip, Ulana explains
what happened to Lyudmilla and her baby.
Do you know the name Vasily Ignatenko?
No.
He was a fireman.
He died two weeks after the accident.
I've been looking in on his widow.
She gave birth, a girl.
The baby lived for four hours.
They said the radiation would have killed the mother,
but the baby absorbed it instead.
We live in a country where children
have to die to save their mothers.
Someone has to start telling the truth.
It's a medical fiction that fetus
can absorb radiation.
There is no science behind it.
It's not like my opinion.
I would say there is no science behind saying
very inaccurate thing
that fetus would absorb the radiation
and die, but protect his mother.
But you know viewers who were watching this clip,
they believed.
My colleagues called me, asking if this is true
because it was so,
not convincing, but it was there.
It was emotional and dramatic
and that's what people felt.
It was ironic to me that next statement
that came from Ulana was we need to tell the truth.
This is a post script to the series.
[somber choral music]
The number of 93,000 is largely inflated.
It's difficult to make a direct comparison
between rates of cancer
before and after Chernobyl.
The diagnosis is much better,
people are undergoing screenings,
which was not a case before.
So in order to have correct numbers,
statistically significant large epidemiological studies
needs to be done and properly assessed.
Sometimes it's matter to get the medical facts correct.
We cannot undo the past,
but we can learn from the past
and if it's ever a nuclear accident,
our response to people from contaminated areas
should be based on science, not on fear.