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Adriana Petryna is a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania researches the cultural and political aspects of nuclear science and medicine.

The article addresses emergency response in two ways by addressing emergency medicine in a long and short-term fashion. It talks about first responder contamination, and whether or not the containment was well handled. The review of the past emphasizes a greater need to prepare for the future. Another part of the article discusses the severe number of individuals that were affected, and thus the problems arising from such a large number of individuals. 

The article illustrates with the use of statistics of the health care system and their diagnostic method that while the program was created with good intentions, it has become apparent that in order to receive the financial assistance necessary, they need to seek assistance from influential advocacy groups.

“The legacy of Chernobyl has been used as a means of signaling Ukraine's domestic and international legitimacy and staking territorial claims; and as a venue of governance and state building, social welfare, and corruption.”

"Citizens, have come to depend on obtainable technologies and legal procedures to gain political regongition and admission to some form of welfare inclusion."

"She told me that Ukrainians were inflating their numbers of exposed persons, that their so-called invalids "didn't want cover." She saw the illnesses of this group as a "struggle for power and mater sources related to the disaster." 

The article’s argument is supported through statistical analysis of health care services available to citizens and personal anecdotes of physicians and other health care workers that were affected by radiation while providing care. Like much of history, looking at the effects of Chernobyl on government and education formation, can provide many ideas on how to improve the system, and create more options if it has to happen again. 

The focus of this article is on the communities affected by the Chernobyl explosions and how it continues to devastate the surrounding area today. It furthermore defines a new society framed by the disaster and the problems they have had to encounter because of the radiation.