Citas Petryna -l-

- Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations-

"(...) The measures also expanded territories considered contaminated. A significant new sector of the population would want to claim itself as part of a state-protected post-Soviet polity. A biophysicist responsible for conducting retrospective dose assays on resettlers told me: "Long lines of resettlers extended from our laboratory doors. It wasn't enough that they were evacuated to 'clean' areas. People got entangled in the category of victim, by law.

They had unpredictable futures, and each of them wanted to know their dose."

Statistics from the Ukrainian Ministry of Health gave evidence of the sharp increase in 1991 of zone workers, resettled persons and inhabitants of contaminated territories registering their disability, and the annual patterns of enrollment of this new population for which the state committed itself to care. The statistics also show that teh sharpest increase in the clinical registration of illnesses occurred under the category "symptoms and other inadequately known states," Class 16 in the International Classification of Disease, ICD10. These states typically include afflictions such as personality changes, premature senility, and psychosis."