Iodine Deficiency in Belarusian Children as a Possible Factor Stimulating the Irradiation of the Thyroid Gland during the Chernobyl Catastrophe

Environmental Health Perspectives 105, Supplement 6, December 1997

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Iodine Deficiency in Belarusian Children as a Possible Factor Stimulating the Irradiation of the Thyroid Gland during the Chernobyl Catastrophe

Maciej Gembicki,¹ Aleksander N. Stozharov,² Aleksander N. Arinchin,² Konstantin V. Moschik,² Siergiej Petrenko,² Irina M. Khmara,² and Keith F. Baverstock³

¹University School of Medical Sciences, Pozna´n, Poland; ²Institute of Radiation Medicine, Minsk, Belarus;³World Health Organization/ European Centre for Environmental Health, Rome Division, Italy

Abstract
Ten years after the Chernobyl nuclear plant catastrophe more than 500 children in Belarus are suffering from thyroid cancer. The major cause of the high incidence of thyroid cancer in children under 15 years of age appears to be contamination resulting from that catastrophe, mainly with isotopes of radioactive iodine. Another important factor may be iodine deficiency in the environment. A countrywide program for investigation of goiter prevalence and iodine deficiency has been established in the Republic of Belarus with the assistance of the European World Health Organization office. The program will oversee the examination of 11,000 children and adolescents 6 to 18 years of age from 30 schools in urban and rural areas. The results obtained in a group of 824 children and adolescents (the pilot phase) are typical for significant iodine deficiency and moderate goiter endemism. It is clear that the present situation does not completely reflect the situation that existed at the time of the Chernobyl catastrophe. However, data from epidemiologic studies conducted many years before the accident showed high goiter prevalence in the contaminated aras, indicating that the prevalence of iodine deficiency at the time of the catastrophe was similar to the present one or even greater. Such an assumption could lead to a better understanding of the thyroid pathologies that have been observed. -- Environ Health Perspect 105(Suppl 6):1487-1490 (1997)

Key words: iodine deficiency, Chernobyl, Belarus, children, thyroid gland, irradiation

This paper is based on a presentation at the International Conference on Radiation and Health held 3-7 November 1996 in Beer Sheva, Israel. Abstracts of these papers were previously published in Public Health Reviews 24(3-4):205-431 (1996). Manuscript received at EHP 10 April 1997; accepted 30 June 1997.
Address correspondence to Dr. M. Gembicki, Department of Endocrinology, University of Medical Sciences, Przybyszewskiego 49, PL-60 355 Pozna'n, Poland. Telephone: 48 61 867 55 14. Fax: 48 61 867 16 82.
Abbreviations used: ICCIDD, International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders; WHO, World Health Organization.

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