Published Jun 17, 2019

HBO “Chernobyl” Actor Alex Ferns Says His Uncle Died From Cancer Related to the 1986 Nuclear Disaster

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HBO’s recent mini serious Chernobyl was a massive hit — although the topics at hand were troubling, and at times hard to watch, millions of viewers tuned in. The series has been criticized by some scientists for dramatizing certain events and facts about the 1986 nuclear disaster, which occurred in what was then the Ukraine. Still, the acting performances and overall story have left a lasting impression on a huge number of viewers — and has prompted widespread discussion about how many cancer deaths have been linked to the incident.

One Chernobyl actor in particular, Alex Ferns, recently revealed in an interview with Scotland’s Daily Record that the Chernobyl disaster actually affected his real family as well — which led to his incredibly emotional performance.

Ferns, who played leading miner Andrei Glukhov in the series, revealed that he and his family believe his uncle Robert Stephenson died because of exposure to rain that was contaminated by the nuclear disaster. Stephenson died of cancer in 2004. He was part of a team who was asked to work outdoors in rain in the aftermath of the disaster, despite objections from the then Scottish Water Board. He died at age 47 — and the family is convinced it’s because of that contamination.

Alex Ferns played Andrei Glukhov in HBO’s *Chernobyl*. He says his uncle died of Chernobyl-linked cancer.

"My uncle Robert used to work for the Scottish Water Board,” Ferns said. “When Chernobyl happened, the poisoned rain came over the west and center of Scotland. My uncle and his colleagues were out working in the rain in the Killearn area and asked to come in, but were told by their gaffer to stay outside and to carry on working. They carried on.”

“Not one of them reached the age of 50, including Robert. They all died of cancer. I think that's a f*cking tragedy,” he said.

As the HBO series points out, the actual number of people affected by the Chernobyl disaster is really difficult to calculate. The official death toll in the immediate aftermath of the disaster was 31 — that includes firefighters are workers who were killed in the explosion. A UCLA doctor named Robert Gale, who actually went to the Soviet Union to help radiation victims after the disaster, recently wrote a piece for Forbes where he said the effects of radiation were greatly exaggerated in the HBO series. One major issue he had with the series was that it portrayed victims of the disaster as radioactive. The TV series had victims quarantined and even suggested that a victim’s wife lost her child because of radiation absorption. This was not actually the case.

"Most radiation contamination was superficial and relatively easily managed by routine procedures. This is entirely different than the [1987] Goiania [Brazil] accident, where the victims ate 137-cesium [from an old tele-therapy machine] and we had to isolate them from most medical personnel,” Gale wrote.

Still, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the number of victims that will eventually die from cancer stemming from the Chernobyl disaster could be up to 9,000. In a 2006 report, the WHO estimated that around 5,000 people who were children or adolescents at the time of the accident had already been diagnosed with thyroid cancer — and that number will only go up, as many cancers take years to develop.

“WHO also estimates there may be up to 9,000 excess cancer deaths due to Chernobyl among the people who worked on the clean-up operations, evacuees and residents of the highly and lower-contaminated regions in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” the report said.

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