Science
Soviets launch Chernobyl health study A major study on the long-term health effects of the explosion of a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, U.S.S.R., is getting under way in the Soviet Union. The study, which is sponsored by the Soviet government, will attempt to follow the health of those people who were closest to the reactor and thus were exposed to the highest levels of radiation when the one unit got out of control and exploded in April of last year. An outline of the plan emerged at a meeting in Vienna called by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization. Attending the meeting were experts from 10 countries— Canada, France, Japan, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the U. K., the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and West Germany—as well as from IAEA, WHO, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The findings of the study will be of "lasting importance," says Yuri Saurov, professor of medicinal science at Moscow's Institute of Biophysics within the U.S.S.R/s ministry of health. They will be of direct interest to e v e r y o n e c o n c e r n e d about the impact that radiation exposure has on human health, both near- and long-term, he points out. "The study will be one of the most complex epidemiological investigations ever undertaken," says Albrecht M. Kellerer, a professor at the Institute of Radiation Medicine at West Germany's Wurzburg University, who chaired the meeting. "It will deal with all possible late effects of radiation exposure, and will have to continue until well into the middle of the 21st century. Recognizing these facts, the Soviet government has assigned unlimited funds to the effort." The study will attempt to monitor the health of as many as 135,000 people who were evacuated from the region most heavily contaminated following the accident. Monitoring will continue for the next 40 or 50 years, or even longer. "We will have to study all the various factors and parameters of people's health, and make clear all the pos-
sible reactions to the doses received, so that people can forecast what might happen in the future," Saurov points out. A research center is being specially set up in Kiev to coordinate and carry out the study. It will maintain close links with other institutes both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. As a first step, work already is under way to compile a register of all who were evacuated from a zone of about a 20-mile radius that was contaminated, as well as others from nearby communities. This register will include estimates of the radiation doses received. Priority is being given initially to detection of adverse health effects among children, typically the appearance of leukemias. The researchers also will be watching for signs of mental retardation in children of women who were eight to
15 weeks pregnant at the time of the accident. Wurzburg's Kellerer underscores the international aspects of the study. It will be conducted in close cooperation with the Radiation Effects Research Foundation at Hiroshima in Japan and with similar groups, he observes. Especially important will be the exchange of the research results not only through the scientific literature, but directly during visits of scientists to the participating institutes. There was general agreement at the Vienna meeting that the work being undertaken in the Soviet Union will be valuable for everyone assessing the health effects of low doses of radiation, and for establishing whether there is a threshold for the appearance of such effects. A follow-up meeting, which might take place in Kiev toward the end of the year, is being considered. Dermot O'Sullivan, London
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