Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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The Ukrainian Ministry of Health has reported a tripling of cancers among
Ukrainian children since 1986.* (See graphs atfached.)
Most disturbing among these is
the sharp increase in thyroid cancer among children.
In the Kiev Research Institute of Endocrinology and Metabollism, the number of
operations performed on children with thyroid cancer has gone up from an average of
ty/o per year, to twenty in 1990, and thirty more in 1991.' Our own National Institutes of
Health have expressed grave concerns about the growing number of confirmed reports
of thyroid cancer among small children in northern Ukraine and southern Belarus. '° This
is an extremely rare form of cancer, that Is hardly ever encountered in children in the
West.
In the hospitals sponsored by our Fund, hematologists have also noticed a
drarrvatic increase in the number of new leukemia cases diagnosed since 1990. This
would be consistent with the latency period between initial radiation exposure in 1986,
and the point at which leukemia develops."
We are also deeply concerned about the rapid increase in health problems
affecting pregnant women and newborns in Ukraine. According to the Kiev Institute of
Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, the rate of miscarriages has more than doubled
since 1986, and the mortality rate among women during delivery has also increased
dramatically.'^
problematic.
(See attached charts.)'^
Now, we realize that some of the information we are receiving is
anecdotal and
ALL of the reports that have been issued on Chernobyl to date call for
rrvDre research. Yet there is broad concensus that the general state of health
throughout Ukraine has deteriorated badly since 1986, and Ukraine is in dire need of
antibiotics, anti-leukemic medicine, and diagnostic equipment, as well as drastic
improvements in prenatal and neonatal care, family planning, and nutritional
supplements.
® Official Report of the Ukrainian tvlinistry of Health, 1991
9 Ibid,
10 Letter from Jacob Robbins, f^.D., Chief of Endocrinology Section, National Institutes of
Health, Department of Health & Human Services, dated February 21, 1992.
1 Davis, supra, at 19; 'Given the latency of radiogenic leukemia incidence (onset at two or
three years, peaking at seven to eight years, and elevated, but trailing off over at least 35
years). ..the threat of cancer likely will hang over individuals in exposed populations for life.'
12 Shkiryak-Nizhnik, Z., The Medical Aftermath of the Chomobyl Disaster", Lecture before the
Boston University School of Public Health, May 22, 1992.
13 Official Report of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, 1991.