INTRODUCTION Experience gained after the Chernobyl accident clearly demonstrated the importance of improving administrative, organisational and technical emergency management arrangements in Europe. The more important areas where technical improvements were needed were early warning monitoring, communication networks for the rapid and reliable exchange of radiological and other information and ...

We investigated levels of DNA damage in blood cells of barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) inhabiting the Chernobyl region to evaluate whether chronic exposure to low-level radioactive contamination continues to induce genetic damage in free-living populations of animals. Blood samples were obtained from barn swallows collected at sites with different background levels of radiation, including a rel...

Several reindeer tissue samples were analysed for transuranium elements following the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Pu, Am and Cm were separated using coprecipitation and anion exchange steps, and measured with alpha spectrometry. The activity concentrations of Pu in reindeer liver found in this study (0.0094–0.062 Bq kg d.w. [= dry weight]) are low compared to the concentrations found in the 196...

We investigated protein abundance in order to differentiate radiation-associated papillary thyroid cancers (PTC) from other etiologies for e.g. forensic purposes. Proteins were extracted from frozen tissues originating from 91 sporadic PTCs and 86 post-Chernobyl PTCs. Proteins were separated gel-electrophoretically, gels were silver stained, spots scanned and their intensity quantified. After e...

Physical-and-chemical properties of Chernobyl hot particles (radionuclide and dispersal composition, nuclear fuel burn-up and radionuclides fractionation, composition of particle matrix etc.) including the fuel particles as specific form of Chernobyl radioactive fall-out were studied [!]• Attempt to reconstruct the conditions of the fuel particles (FP) formation during the accident was done [2,...

We evaluated the incidence of childhood thyroid diseases and urinary iodine levels in Nagasaki, Japan and in Gomel, Belarus, which was greatly radio-contaminated by the Chernobyl accident, in order to obtain the comparative data of thyroid diseases between iodine-rich (Japan) and -deficient (Belarus) areas. In Nagasaki, the median level of urinary iodine, measured by ammonium persulfate digesti...

After the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, the residents living around the Chernobyl were revealed to have been internally exposed to 137Cs through the intake of contaminated local foods. To evaluate the current situation of internal 137Cs exposure and the relationship between the 137Cs soil contamination and internal exposure in residents, we investigated the 137Cs body burden in reside...

The variation in survival of women with clinically similar breast cancers may lead to difficulty in clinical management so it is important to recognise factors which indicate the prognosis. Immunoperoxidase staining patterns of primary breast tumours using monoclonal antibody NCRC-11 have been shown to relate to overall survival (Ellis et al., 1985) but the results have not been reproducible in...

Over 500 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in Belarus between 1986 and 1995 among persons exposed as children (under 15 years of age) to radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. There is little doubt that radioactive iodine isotopes emitted during the nuclear explosion and subsequent fire were instrumental in causing malignancy in this particular organ. Comparison of ...

The disaster at the Chernobyl power reactor near Kiev, which began on April 26, 1986, was one of the world's worst industrial accidents. Yet the global community, usually most generous in its aid to a stricken community, has been slow to understand the scope of the disaster and reach out to the most devastated people of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. This article probes the causes of this confus...