I hate to say it because so much of this show was actually really excellent and accurate but in the Chernobyl miniseries they totally did the “radiation is contagious” thing and it is just not true.
Things and people that are irradiated/hit by radiation in a situation like a reactor failure or contact with radioactive waste do not become radioactive. They can have radioactive particles on their clothing/skin or inside their body if they have ingested/inhaled radioactive material, but they are not emitting radiation themselves. Furthermore, a thin sheet of paper or cloth will stop the kind of radioactivity that would be emitted by such material, if it is on the outside of a person’s body.
Anyways the point is that the woman whose husband was dying of radiation poisoning and then she went in and spent time with him did not lose her baby because she spent time with him. That’s just not how it works.
Lots of environmental contamination-related stuff in movies is inaccurate but that one is the most recent I can think of.
Well, shoot. Here I was going to say it wasn’t such a bad one to get wrong but the world goes and proves me wrong. That’s just heinous.
It’s entirely possible her baby died due to Chernobyl-related pollution from her inhaling radioactive dust after the blast, but it sure as hell wasn’t made worse by her caring for her husband. She was probably safer inside whatever isolation unit they had him in than outside, since it was cleaner. I can forgive the nurses in 1980s Ukraine for not knowing that but a TV series written in the 2020s should really not be furthering that misunderstanding.
It’s a shame because plenty of the other radiation-related stuff in the show was fine but that one was just so off base and clearly has had extremely negative real-world consequences.
I hate to say it because so much of this show was actually really excellent and accurate but in the Chernobyl miniseries they totally did the “radiation is contagious” thing and it is just not true.
Things and people that are irradiated/hit by radiation in a situation like a reactor failure or contact with radioactive waste do not become radioactive. They can have radioactive particles on their clothing/skin or inside their body if they have ingested/inhaled radioactive material, but they are not emitting radiation themselves. Furthermore, a thin sheet of paper or cloth will stop the kind of radioactivity that would be emitted by such material, if it is on the outside of a person’s body.
Anyways the point is that the woman whose husband was dying of radiation poisoning and then she went in and spent time with him did not lose her baby because she spent time with him. That’s just not how it works.
Lots of environmental contamination-related stuff in movies is inaccurate but that one is the most recent I can think of.
That was for sure dramatized, and the real woman who lost her baby was very outspoken when the series was released that she didn’t kill her baby. In addition to being inaccurate it also didn’t portray her properly. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/23/say-killed-baby-woman-inspired-chernobyl-tv-character-says-abuse/
Well, shoot. Here I was going to say it wasn’t such a bad one to get wrong but the world goes and proves me wrong. That’s just heinous.
It’s entirely possible her baby died due to Chernobyl-related pollution from her inhaling radioactive dust after the blast, but it sure as hell wasn’t made worse by her caring for her husband. She was probably safer inside whatever isolation unit they had him in than outside, since it was cleaner. I can forgive the nurses in 1980s Ukraine for not knowing that but a TV series written in the 2020s should really not be furthering that misunderstanding.
It’s a shame because plenty of the other radiation-related stuff in the show was fine but that one was just so off base and clearly has had extremely negative real-world consequences.
Oh man. That really sucks.
I really liked this series until a few moments ago.
That woman has been through a truly harrowing experience in her 20s and they’ve just dumped on her again.
Except https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation
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I couldn’t get past the first 10 or so minutes because of how unbelievable the show was…