Open AccessThe chernobyl catastrophe and population health: The state of knowledge in 1993
Author(s) -
Pyatak Oles Avdiyovych
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
stem cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.159
H-Index - 229
eISSN - 1549-4918
pISSN - 1066-5099
DOI - 10.1002/stem.5530150718
Subject(s) - biology , ukrainian , medical radiation , population , radiation dose , radiation exposure , environmental health , accidental , medicine , nuclear medicine , medical physics , physics , acoustics , philosophy , linguistics
This review describes the history and organizational structure of the Ukrainian Research Center for Radiation Medicine, which has studied the health effects of the Chernobyl incident since 1986. In five years of observation, the percentage of people defined as “healthy” was reduced by 1.6‐2.2 times, and the general frequency of disease increased by 2.6 times. The most common disorders seen were of the pulmonary, central nervous system, circulatory and gastrointestinal systems. The observed medical effects of radiation from Chernobyl are greater than might be expected, given the estimates of radiation dose released. This discrepancy may result from an underestimation of the radiation dose or a failure to account for compounding the interaction with factors other than radiation. Ongoing surveillance of the consequences from the Chernobyl accident must take place to provide new information on the health effects of accidental radiation exposure in humans. Stem Cells 1997; 15(suppl 2): 125‐128