The findings bolster a controversial 1996 report by Dubrova and a different group of colleagues that
linked germ line mutations to fallout from the 1986 Chornobyl explosion. That study, published in Nature, described
double the usual mutation
rate in the children of men living in a region of Belarus heavily contaminated with cesium
137.
In
each subject they examined eight minisatellite DNA regions that are prone to mutations. ...
Compared to control families
in a nonirradiated part of Kazakhstan, individuals exposed to fallout had a rougly 80%
increase in mutation rate,
and their children showed an average rise of 50%.