Description of the chronic radiation syndrome in humans irradiated in the former Soviet Union.

The purpose of this letter is to call attention to the availability of a technical report on the chronic radiation syndrome (CRS) which may be obtained from the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI). Pursuant to facilitating communications between radiation scientists in the United States and the former Soviet Union, AFRRI and the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) have provided small amounts of funding for scientists in the former Soviet Union to conduct pilot experiments or to pursue critical archiving documentation and/or analysis of existing data. The overarching goal was to augment the process whereby important newly available data or ideas could be communicated outside the former Soviet Union for evaluation by the scientific community. One such effort is a report entitled Analysis of Chronic Radiation Sickness Cases in the Population of the Southern Urals, authored by M. M. Kossenko, A. A. Akleyev, M. O. Degteva, V. P. Kozheurov and R. G. Degtyaryova, that describes CRS, a syndrome considered by the authors to be unique. After World War II the Soviet Union rapidly accelerated its nuclear weapons program. Plants for processing fuel for weapons were quickly set up, the first one near the city of Chelyabinsk in the Southern Urals. Because of the perceived urgency for rapid production of nuclear weapons, some compromises seem to have been made. Authorities felt that release of radioactive wastes below a certain concentration did not pose a significant hazard to the health of the villagers downstream along the Techa River from the "Mayak" plant. Accordingly, between 1950 and 1951 an average of 4,300 Ci were discharged daily into the river. By this time workers in the Mayak plant were being exposed to radiation at annual doses of 2.0-4.5 Gy (Okladnikova et al., Human chronic radiation sickness caused by external y irradiation, long-term stage, Bull. Acad. Med. Sci. 2, 22-26, 1991). The diagnosis of CRS was made for 1,596 workers. This entity was defined by Drs. A. K.