I'm sorry for your family's health problems. I'm also sorry if this comes off a bit crass considering, but this mysterious thought process of radiation is exact

I'm sorry for your family's health problems. I'm also sorry if this comes off a bit crass considering, but this mysterious thought process of radiation is exactly why we need to focus harder on epidemiological studies of radiation effects. By your exact same argument it could easily have been the successful reactor safety test in Idaho that happened 2 weeks before Chernobyl that caused your mother's health issues. It's far to easy for any of us to magically attribute something with another without looking at the big picture. The scientific method offers us a way to tease out which hunches like this are real and which are fantasy. Fact is, we use epidemiology to understand these things, and the jury is in [1]. [1] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html Anecdotally, my college girlfriend was a child in Gomel Belarus during Chernobyl. Her father had a Geiger counter and took readings around here. There was lots of elevated dose rates. She is perfectly healthy to this day though!