Thursday, May 20, 2010

Protest

Chernobyl Ignored by WHO : Geneva, CH

Directly across the street from and off the property of the World Health Organization is this little set up. These folks, who are protesting what they perceive1 as WHO's failure to address the long-term health effects of the meltdown at Chernobyl, RU, occupy this corner five days a week, 52 weeks a year--rain, snow, or shine. There are usually one or two people personning this station. The day I took this photo, the guy on site saw me and ducked behind the sign. You can just see his forehead and eyes above the "L" in Chernobyl. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

1. I don't know enough about this issue to know whether they're right and WHO is wrong or vice versa. Ergo, please don't flame me in the comments for my word choice. I haven't taken the time to look up the section of the International Health Regulations or the World Health Assembly proceedings to know what this is all about. In other words: seeking further light and knowledge. :-)

Photo copyright: Janet M Kincaid, 5/10

7 comments:

Unknown said...

People trend to forget what Chernpbyl was. So many years have passed. There are some who want to remind us. After all.. the effects of that disaster are still present.
have a great day.
Costas

Eeyore said...

Well, I'm a nuclear engineer by education and former training, but not so much on the health effects. Chernobyl was a disaster, from a fundamental design standpoint and a management standpoint, and it has certainly left a tragedy in its wake, but I don't know if it is so much worse than other disasters. There are probably more children suffering from milaria every year than will ever be affected by Chernobyl. They just get bit one at a time instead of all at once.

Rob said...

My observation is this; this display is in Switzerland and Chernobyl happened in Ukraine. But the signs are written in perfect English and the protester is hiding behind the sign. Why English and why hide?

Chris said...

Rob: English IS THE international language and just because someone is not a native english speaker does not mean he is not capable of speaking, and/or writing and/or understanding english.



Of course there are a lot of health issues around the world, we are probably not even aware of some of them.
I am an Austrian (which goes to show that I can understand and write in english) and we got quite a bit of the radiation from Chernobyl back than. On that day it was raining here in Austria and it washed the poison out of the air onto and into our grounds. Measured toxins where rather high - some of them have a half-life period of more than 500 years. Which means a lot of this stuff is still in the earth around here. For quite some time we were not allowed to eat anything that was growing in the garden or the fields. In fact I think we should not eat any now - but it's been over 30 years and most people have forgotten about it.
My girls where young children - and they and a lot of our than young people have problems with getting pregnant (or have problems with their sperma), or they can't have children at all. One of the toxins that went down affects the "reproduction system" massivly. One of my girls had to have surgery twice, her husband had to have surgery and finally they had their first child (after being married 7 years) after an "in vitro fertilisation".

Of course there might be other components but I firmly believe that Tschernobyl has A LOT to do with a lot of health problems around here and over Europe which are increasing.

Naturally nobody in "official" life talks about that anymore, "we wouldn't want the population to get nervous".

And if all these things happen around here, thousands of miles away, what will it be like just there or much closer than we are.

I can understand the man ducking behind his sign. With internet and information being spread fast all over the world, he would not want to be recognised by anyone because he may get into a lot of trouble in/or with Russia and surrounding countries. The officials there have even greater interest to keep this "down".

I saw a report about that aerea some weeks back and it was sobering.

This just in short. Have a nice day everyone. Chris

Cele said...

I'm going to show my ignorance here, what is WHO suppose to do?

Cele said...

Where has Janet gone?

Maya said...

So they are camera shy, eh?