Population Health in Regions Adjacent to the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site

摘要

This research covers archived results of complex medical examinations done in the 1950s and 1960s by the Ministry of Health (Minzdrav) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Inhabitants of several Kazakhstan regions were contaminated in different years by radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site. The demand for analyzing the archives came about because the health status of the population had deteriorated, and the incidence of cancer and cancer mortality had increased in Kazakhstan and other eastern regions of the Russian Federation (Altai district, the Republic of Altai, and others). Although clinical and hematological examinations noted negligible variations in the indices of peripheral blood, these were of a reactive character. They could have been caused by the impact of radioactive substances on the human body; however, no changes characteristic of radiation sickness were revealed. Also, functional deviations noted in certain organ systems could not be attributed to radioactive fallout because similar deviations were also observed in somatic and infectious diseases. The summary and analysis of the archives with their complex medical examinations of the population in the contaminated territories allow a more objective assessment of the impact of the atmospheric nuclear tests on the health of populations in different regions.