THE NEW PANORAMA OF RADIOEPIDEMIOLOGY - PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES THAT EMERGE IN A CHANGED EUROPE

The political change in the former Soviet Union and its sphere of infl uence has brought into the open information on various situations invo lving the radiation exposure of large populations, and has thus widene d the field of radioepidemiological investigations that need to be per formed. Three issues are considered. The consequences of the Chernobyl accident are still largely unresolved, and the hopes for radioepidemi ological investigations have been gravely disappointed due to the lack of coordinated efforts. The steep increase of childhood thyroid carci noma rates in Belarus is the only observed late effect so far; but eve n in the face of this alarming situation there is little readiness to accept help with regards to medical treatment and to scientific invest igations. The attempts to block all information after the reactor acci dent in the former Soviet Union must be seen against the background of earlier occurrences that were successfully hidden for decades, and a particularly grave issue was the large scale contamination in the Sout hern Urals of the River Techa and adjacent villages. An epidemiologica l study on the affected population has led to first results; it may de velop into a major body of knowledge on radiation risks from protracte d exposures. A third broad task in the years to come will be the analy sis of the health effects in the underground miners of the Wismut AG, the former Soviet-German uranium mining enterprise. Exposure data and health information on several 100,000 miners will need to be analysed, and this may further the knowledge of the effects of radon exposures.