Chapter 5
Box 5.1 Thyroid gland cancer: who cares?

Nearly a decade and a half after the world’s worst nuclear accident, thyroid cancer cases among the people of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are still rising. Yet despite such evidence, the legacy of secrecy from Soviet times continues to throw long shadows. Many Belarusians refuse to believe anything the authorities say – some would rather remain ignorant of their contaminated condition than face the consequences.

Mogilyov is one of Belarus’s biggest cities, in a region covered by the International Federation’s Chernobyl Humanitarian Assistance and Rehabilitation Programme (CHARP). The city itself is relatively ‘clean’, but all is not what it seems.

“It is the unexpected that always happens,” says Valery, a 47-year-old factory worker, who was one of many manual labourers checked by the Belarus Red Cross mobile diagnostic laboratory (MDL) in February 1999. “Before, I didn’t believe it could happen to me,” he adds. “It’s been 13 years since the accident in Chernobyl and I thought it was already too late to worry about anything. So when the MDL came to our factory, I had my doubts. ‘Is it worthwhile to have a check-up?’ I asked myself. Well, it costs nothing. So I’ll go.”

When the doctors showed Valery a picture of his thyroid gland taken by the scanner, he could not believe it. Even to his untrained eye it was clear he had a serious problem. A month later, Valery was operated on in Minsk, and his cancerous thyroid gland surgically removed. He now has to take the drug levothyroxine for the rest of his life, otherwise he could die of organ or immune system failure. But as Valery admits, he is one of the lucky ones: “I live in a big city and could get an examination. What about people living in remote areas who have almost no chance of knowing about their real health situation? The only chance is the Red Cross.”

According to Arthur Grigorovich, head of one of the mobile lab teams: “Living conditions have generally been deteriorating in recent years – especially for people in the rural areas. When you can hardly afford to buy food,” he adds, “even a bus ticket to the nearest city is too expensive. People who don’t feel sick don’t spend money on transportation for a medical check-up.”

After the operation, Valery returned to his factory and suggested to his colleagues that they have a check-up too. “I knew that only a third of the 800 people working at my factory decided to be examined, so I said them: Doesn’t my situation speak for itself? But one of them replied: ‘The less we know about our illnesses the less we worry’.”