Chernobyl at 40 years: leukaemias, cancers and implications for nuclear safety

40 years ago, on April 28, 1986, I received a 3 AM call from Anatoly Dubrinin, the Soviet Union Ambassador to the US in Washington. He told me President Mikhail Gorbachev wanted me to come to Moscow immediately. I guessed it was about the Chernobyl nuclear power facility accident 2 days earlier, details of which were hidden by Soviet authorities but revealed soon thereafter when the radioactive cloud released from the reactor complex near Kyiv, Ukraine reached radiation sensors at a Swedish nuclear power facility. I knew Mr. Gorbachev from meeting a few years before at the funeral of his mentor, General Secretary Yuri Andropov who led the USSR briefly. I offered help to treat the most seriously injured radiation victims.