Children of Chernobyl

RADIATION -INDUCED conditions and tumours; other than thyroid cancer have increased significantly in the former Soviet republic of Belarus since the accident atthe Chernobyl nuclear plantin 1986, say researchers.

Many experts claim thatthe only significant healtheffect of the accident was toincrease the number of people contracting thyroid cancer by a factor of over 200.There have been more than900 reported cases since 1990in the region most affected bythe Chernobyl fallout, a largechunk of which is Belarus.Chernobyl, in Ukraine, is lessthan 20 km from Belarus'sborder.

An international conference on Chernobyl sponsored by the World HealthOrganisation (WHO) and others, held in Vienna in 1996,concluded that there was Chewing"no consistent, attributableincrease... either in the rate of leukaemiaor in the incidence of any malignanciesother than thyroid carcinomas". Thisdeclaration deprived Belarus of much ofthe international aid it had hoped for.

However, Rose Goncharova of theInstitute of Genetics and Cytology at theAcademy of Science in Minsk, the capitalof Belarus, has re-analysed data collectedin 1996 for a national genetic monitoring programme. She found that since1985, the number of reported cases ofcongenital malformations in children,such as cleft palate, Down's syndromeand deformation of limbs and organs,has increased by a phenomenal 83 per cent in areas heavily contaminated bythe Chernobyl fallout. In mildly contaminated regions, such cases have gone upby 30 per cent and by 24 per cent in theso-called 'clean' areas. All these congenital conditions have been associated with radiation damage in past research.Goncharova discounts another possiblecause, toxic chemicals, since pollutionhas fallen significantly in the past decade(New Scientist, Vol 160, No 2155).

Goncharova's research is the first toquantify what local researchers havebelieved for many years now. A conference in Minsk in March this year challenged the conclusion of the 1996Vienna meet, claiming that theChernobyl disaster had caused manymalignant tumours, developmentalmalformations and many other longterm consequences. "The existence of aserious radiation risk... should beadmitted." At the Vienna conferenceitself, researchers from the Centre forMedical Technology in Belarus presented a study indicating an increase in theincidence of a wide range of tumoursamong the population of Gomel, themost contaminated area in Belarus.

Elisabeth Cardis from the Paris-based International Agency for Researchon Cancer, who presided over the session on long-term health effects atVienna, is sceptical of Goncharova's conclusions "it si likely that generation of abnormalities has been improving in recent years, which could have led to the observed increases."