Plants and mushrooms accumulate the Chernobyl radionuclides at a level that depends upon the soil, the climate, the particular biosphere, the season, spotty radioactive contamination, and the particular species and populations (subspecies, cultivars), etc. Each radionuclide has its own accumulation characteristics (e. g., levels of accumulation for Sr-90 are much higher than for Cs-137, and a thousand times less than that for Ce-144). Coefficients of accumulation and transition ratios vary so much in time and space that it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the actual levels of Cs-137, Sr-90, Pu-238, Pu-239, Pu-240, and Am-241 at each place and time and for each individual plant or fungus. Chernobyl irradiation has caused structural anomalies and tumorlike changes in many plant species. Unique pathologic complexes are seen in the Chernobyl zone, such as a high percentage of anomalous pollen grains and spores. Chernobyl's irradiation has led to genetic disorders, sometimes continuing for many years, and it appears that it has awakened genes that have been silent over a long evolutionary time.

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Problems complicating a full assessment of the effects from Chernobyl included official secrecy and falsification of medical records by the USSR for the first 3.5 years after the catastrophe and the lack of reliable medical statistics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Official data concerning the thousands of cleanup workers (Chernobyl liquidators) who worked to control the emissions are especially difficult to reconstruct. Using criteria demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) resulted in marked underestimates of the number of fatalities and the extent and degree of sickness among those exposed to radioactive fallout from Chernobyl. Data on exposures were absent or grossly inadequate, while mounting indications of adverse effects became more and more apparent. Using objective information collected by scientists in the affected areas--comparisons of morbidity and mortality in territories characterized by identical physiography, demography, and economy, which differed only in the levels and spectra of radioactive contamination--revealed significant abnormalities associated with irradiation, unrelated to age or sex (e.g., stable chromosomal aberrations), as well as other genetic and nongenetic pathologies.

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