Re: KI Inquiry -Reply

[Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 14:18 06.11.1996 -0600, you wrote:

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>I couldn't agree more. Also, if the Russians had prevented the children
>from drinking iodine-contaminated milk, that would have helped too. 
>Seems to me I remember the Brits condemned thousands of gallons of milk
>after the Windscale accident decades ago.  Apparently, the Russians
>didn't learn anything from that accident.  Even if it were to happen
>here (or anywhere else), we'd have both of those tools to prevent
>thyroid cancers in potentially contaminated children.  Al Tschaeche
>xat@inel.gov
>
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Do you have any reliable sources, which confirm that "the Russians" let the
children drink iodine-contaminated milk? (Chernobyl is in the Ukraine and
the states most affected by the Chernobyl accident are the Ukraine and
Bjelorussia. Russia was hardly affected at all.) To my knowledge milk and
other food was extensively monitored as well as iodine in thyroids. Not to
talk about the fact, that a large area was evacuated soon - in some close
areas people should have been evacuated immediately without doubt. But my
information which not only is from international sources, but which I
received also during a stay in Kiev at the Institute for Radiation Medicine
about 7 years ago might be wrong and unreliable, compared to your sources.  

I do not doubt that KI is available in large quantities in all countries,
but I just wonder whether it is in the correct form (pills or solution), the
right quantity and most of all, how you predict, which areas far away from
the accident will be affected and how supply will be done in time, before
the clouds with fissions products arrive. People living in the vicinity of a
nuclear power station should of course be provided in advance with KI
tablets and this seems not having been the case in Prypiat. I understand -
for instance from the IAEA conference on "10 years after Chernobyl", that
the thyroid cancer cases have shown up in areas far from Chernobyl. 

Most scientists in the Commonwealth of Independent States (not "Russia")
have a level which is comparable to any Western level and I seriously
believe that it is not justified to simply state, that "the Russians have
not learnt anything".

Franz
Schoenhofer
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