THE ROLE OF MUSHROOMS AND BERRIES IN THE FORMATION OF INTERNAL EXPOSURE DOSES TO THE POPULATION OF RUSSIA AFTER THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT

The present work is devoted to an analysis of the data on the dynamics of Cs-137 transfer factors in the current most critical (for the popu lation of Russia) links of food chain: 'soil mushrooms' and 'soil berr ies'. Data were obtained during 1986-1994 in the most contaminated reg ion of Russia - the Bryansk region - and then were used for assessing the contribution of forest products consumed by the population of cont aminated territories to internal exposure doses. It was shown in contr ast to agricultural food products (where natural decontamination took place quickly) that radioactive decontamination of mushrooms and berri es during the eight years after the Chernobyl accident was very slow. Use is made of aggregated radioecological data together with broad ass umptions about the consumption of forest products to predict the doses that might arise from consumption of such foodstuffs. These predictio ns are then compared with values derived from whole-body measurements.