Chernobyl program in Valley faces hardships
By Ed Runyan
The Ukrainian children have not demonstrated many health problems over the years, one doctor said.
CAMPBELL — Twenty-two years after the nuclear power plant disaster that sent radioactive debris into the air over Belarus, the Children of Chernobyl program has lost some of its steam, says its local president, Denise Zetts of Campbell.
Since 1992, children from Belarus, a former Soviet republic north of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, have been coming to the United States to improve their health.
About 150 children from Belarus stayed in the Mahoning Valley for about seven weeks in the summer of 2002, but the number is down to about 60 this year, Zetts said. Of those, about 40 are staying in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys, with the rest in West Virginia, Missouri and Illinois.
At its peak, the organization brought as many as 15 new children to the U.S. This year, it is bringing five, Zetts said.
One big reason for the decline is that increasing numbers of sponsors can no longer afford the cost to bring the child back to the U.S. because airfares have risen from $1,000 to around $1,600 for a round-trip flight, she said.
With donations falling, the group also doesn’t have as much money to pay the air fare for new children to participate, she said.
The latest children of Chernobyl began arriving in the Mahoning Valley on Wednesday and Thursday with another group arriving July 2.
A primary goal of the Children of Chernobyl program is to allow the children whose families were exposed to nuclear radiation to travel outside of their homeland to live in a healthy environment. Another goal is to provide them with a better quality of medical care than they can get at home.
Though some reports indicate that the rate of thyroid cancer is 10 times higher in Belarus than elsewhere, the head of the St. Elizabeth Family Health Center said the Children of Chernobyl who have been treated there have not had thyroid cancers.
In fact, the facility’s director, Dr. Rudolph Krafft, said he has been surprised at the relative health of the kids from Belarus over the years.
“We really haven’t seen the things you’d expect,” such as thyroid disease and anemia — the conditions most associated with radiation exposure, he said.
“We have seen an occasional problem associated with lack of medical care, but nothing associated with radiation exposure,” he said.
Krafft said it’s possible that this is because many of the kids in the program are not among the ones who need medical help the most.
Zetts said it is true that Belarus does sometimes send children to the U.S. who never lived in areas affected by the radiation, but not most.
Liz Markusic of Poland, Ohio, who is providing a home for 15-year-old Tanya Silich of Mazyr, Belarus, this summer for the eighth year, says Tanya (aka Tatsiana) suffered from the same stomach bacteria condition during each of the first three years she came to live with the Markusics.
Each time, the Markusics took her for treatment of the problem, which caused her to vomit and experience light-headedness. Tanya overcame the condition after three years of antibiotics.
Without the antibiotics, Tanya would have suffered with the condition her whole life, because antibiotics are not as common in Belarus as here, said Markusic, who is a nurse.
Another child she knows had a terrible infection caused by chronic tonsillitis because she didn’t have access to antibiotics, Markusic added.
Most of the children have arrived the first year or two with bad teeth because of poor dental health in Belarus, Markusic said.
As the wife of a pastor, Markusic said she has been grateful for the chance to expose Tanya to her Christian faith, since religious freedom is not as commonplace in Belarus.
Markusic and other Children of Chernobyl sponsors say they have enjoyed learning about Belarus — a country very different from the U.S. — during visits there.
Zetts says she is aware of many of the children from Chernobyl who have had thyroid problems over the years. She says she believes the children have other immune system problems and genetic defects that don’t show up in a routine physical.
A 2004 documentary by Adi Roche, executive director of the Chernobyl Children’s Project, says a quarter of babies and children up to age 3 born just after the 1986 accident in the highest fallout areas will develop thyroid cancer in their lifetime.
Jacques Harvey of Hubbard, another sponsor, said it’s no surprise to him that people in the Chernobyl region still suffer from lingering radiation years after the accident.
He was able to get inside of the “Dead Zone,” an area that was evacuated after the accident and kept from public view, and found it “desolate” in 2003.
“I didn’t see a mouse. I didn’t see a bird. It was the strangest thing,” he said.
Zetts and Markusic said they see a tangible improvement in the appearance of their children from Chernobyl every time they come to visit.
“When you look at them [when they first arrive], they look very pale,” said Zetts. “They just look like different kids when they leave. They have color in their faces,” she said.
runyan@vindy.com