Fallout Memory Trajectories at Semipalatinsk 203
In the sections that follow, I bring to the fore the laborious memory
practices in late Soviet and post-Soviet radiation risk assessment sciences,
in particular those concerned with transgenerational effects. I proceed by
examining two instances of this process of reassembling in risk assessment
research that address the motive of “the mother and the child” in scientific
accounts of risk assessment sciences. I describe how institutional scientific
memory practices of atomic heritage grapple with the past of Soviet nuclear
weapons testing, when it comes to studies of genetic and long-term effects of
fallout exposures due to nuclear testing at Semipalatinsk.
Transgenerational Nuclear Memory: “Mother and Child,”
as Rendered in Population Genetics
Soon after the test site at Semipalatinsk was closed, politicians and government institutions began negotiating a compensation program, which was
released as early as 1992. 32 Just after the test site was closed, the assessment
of the immediate radiological situation and exposure effects were the main
focus of risk assessment. The government of Kazakhstan invited international
missions to take part in assessing the radiological situation and called the
UN for help on assessing and containing the risks that remained from the
nuclear installations and legacies of four decades of atomic weapons testing
at Semipalatinsk. 33 Over the years, groups of Kazakhstani and international
scholars have also addressed the long-term legacies of nuclear exposure,
including transgenerational effects among the children and grandchildren
of those exposed to nuclear fallout. As with epidemiological studies, these
assessments were conducted as different observational studies analyzing data
retrospectively as well as in a prospective way, by establishing health monitoring infrastructures that could register effects of radiation.
Reproductive health has been a key concern of Soviet modernization in
medicine. 34 Not only motive of the official memorialization in public monuments, the “mother and the child” was literally built into Soviet institutions. During the late 1969s and 1970s, “Centers for the Health of Mother
and Child” with mandates to advance obstetrics and reproductive health had
been founded across the USSR. In the Soviet Republics of Central Asia,
efforts to establish a modern healthcare infrastructure included reproductive
health centers as well as cancer diagnostics and therapy. These two specializations of medical care were particularly entangled with the Soviet nuclear
program and its research into diagnostic and therapeutic radiation medicine.
In Alma-Ata, a Center for Reproductive Health was founded in 1975 to
carry out clinical services and consultations, including cytogenetics and other
laboratory analyses as well as research in obstetrics and medical genetics.
During the 1980s, there were close ties with the Moscow-based Institute for
Medical Genetics of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, established
as the leading USSR research center on cytogenetics after 1969. Cytogenetics
as a field and practice within biology had a troubled history in the USSR.
In the sections that follow, I bring to the fore the laborious memory
practices in late Soviet and post-Soviet radiation risk assessment sciences,
in particular those concerned with transgenerational effects. I proceed by
examining two instances of this process of reassembling in risk assessment
research that address the motive of “the mother and the child” in scientific
accounts of risk assessment sciences. I describe how institutional scientific
memory practices of atomic heritage grapple with the past of Soviet nuclear
weapons testing, when it comes to studies of genetic and long-term effects of
fallout exposures due to nuclear testing at Semipalatinsk.
Transgenerational Nuclear Memory: “Mother and Child,”
as Rendered in Population Genetics
Soon after the test site at Semipalatinsk was closed, politicians and government institutions began negotiating a compensation program, which was
released as early as 1992. 32 Just after the test site was closed, the assessment
of the immediate radiological situation and exposure effects were the main
focus of risk assessment. The government of Kazakhstan invited international
missions to take part in assessing the radiological situation and called the
UN for help on assessing and containing the risks that remained from the
nuclear installations and legacies of four decades of atomic weapons testing
at Semipalatinsk. 33 Over the years, groups of Kazakhstani and international
scholars have also addressed the long-term legacies of nuclear exposure,
including transgenerational effects among the children and grandchildren
of those exposed to nuclear fallout. As with epidemiological studies, these
assessments were conducted as different observational studies analyzing data
retrospectively as well as in a prospective way, by establishing health monitoring infrastructures that could register effects of radiation.
Reproductive health has been a key concern of Soviet modernization in
medicine. 34 Not only motive of the official memorialization in public monuments, the “mother and the child” was literally built into Soviet institutions. During the late 1969s and 1970s, “Centers for the Health of Mother
and Child” with mandates to advance obstetrics and reproductive health had
been founded across the USSR. In the Soviet Republics of Central Asia,
efforts to establish a modern healthcare infrastructure included reproductive
health centers as well as cancer diagnostics and therapy. These two specializations of medical care were particularly entangled with the Soviet nuclear
program and its research into diagnostic and therapeutic radiation medicine.
In Alma-Ata, a Center for Reproductive Health was founded in 1975 to
carry out clinical services and consultations, including cytogenetics and other
laboratory analyses as well as research in obstetrics and medical genetics.
During the 1980s, there were close ties with the Moscow-based Institute for
Medical Genetics of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, established
as the leading USSR research center on cytogenetics after 1969. Cytogenetics
as a field and practice within biology had a troubled history in the USSR.