[NukeNet] 3.4 Million Ukranians Suffering From Chernobyl

[Bill Smirnow]

  This is from 2000:

   Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 11:17:33 EST
   From: magnu96196 at aol.com
Subject: INTERVIEW-For Chernobyl victims, health crisis gathers pace

INTERVIEW-For Chernobyl victims, health crisis gathers pace

By Olena Horodetska


KIEV, Nov 22 (Reuters) - One in sixteen Ukrainians is suffering grave health
disorders linked to the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster, a senior
official said on Wednesday before the plant's closure next month.

They suffer from cancer and other diseases affecting their blood,
respiratory, digestive or nervous systems and will remain an ailing legacy
of
the world's worst peacetime nuclear explosion for years to come, Valeriy
Pishchikov said.

Pishchikov, the health ministry official charged with dealing with the
aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, told Reuters that around 3.4 million
Ukrainians, nearly half of them children, were still suffering from the
accident.

"Today, almost 15 years after the accident, there is still a growing number
of ill people among Chernobyl victims, and it is very worrying," Pishchikov
said in an interview.

"Chernobyl sparked their diseases and their health is getting worse and
worse
every year. That trend is likely to continue for at least another 15 years,"
he said.

Chernobyl's number four reactor exploded on April 26, 1986, spreading a
radioactive cloud over much of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and parts of Western
Europe.

Soviet officials who initially tried to hush up the tragedy acknowleged in
the end that 31 people were killed immediately after the blast and thousands
were affected by radiation.

SCALE OF TRAGEDY

But the true scale of the catastrophe which displaced hundreds of people and
turned local communities into radioactive ghost towns has turned out to be
far greater than once thought, even as the country has continued to rely on
one last reactor at Chernobyl for around five percent of its power.

Following Western political pressure and pledges to help fund two
replacement
reactors elsewhere, President Leonid Kuchma has agreed to shut down
Chernobyl
on December 15.

Hundreds of workers sent in to clean up after the accident, known in Ukraine
as "liquidators," had their life expectancies slashed by three to four
years,
in a country where life expectancy is already low at 63 years for men, and
74
for women.

Most "liquidators" are now aged between 40 and 55, and 4,000 have already
died. Health ministry statistics show that their death rate is increasing.

"We've registered cell mutations, and these people develop complex forms of
diseases. They need more  medicines to treat complications, and better
food,"
Pishchikov said.

He said the entire nation was getting increasingly sick due to poor living
standards and poor funding of the health care system, but the health of
those
affected by the accident and living in contaminated areas was even worse.

"It is disturbing...the sickness rate among those affected by the explosion
is 20 percent higher than the national average while this rate among
children
is over 30 percent higher than the average," Pishchikov said.

The rate of thyroid cancer among children and teenagers from the area was 10
times the national average, Pishchikov said.

"In 1981-1985 we did not register a single case of thyroid cancer in
Ukraine.
After Chernobyl, between 1986 and 2000, the number of cases of this disease
has reached 1,400."

Pishchikov said the number of tuberculosis cases among those affected was
16.4 percent above the national average.

Some government officials have said that almost 15 years after the accident
the state might reduce its help to the liquidators and those living in
contaminated areas, although Pishchikov said the state should continue to
support them.

10:20 11-22-00