"The effects of Chernobyl...greatly exaggerated.."

That quote came from a report in a September 6, 2005 Herald Tribune article which blames a lot of the problems that Chernobyl residents have cited, on an "increased fatalism because they believed they were at greater risk than they are". The writer of the article (Elizabeth Rosenthal) maintains that this fatalism manifested itself in drug use, unprotected sex and alcohol use, which led to the afore-mentioned problems. These pictures by Robert Knoth, taken in 2006, tell a different story.