Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS translation reproduces an IZVESTIYA article by A. Tarasov, published 26 October 1991, on the "Sverdlovsk syndrome." The illness left students and other harvest workers on Ural potato fields with toxic polyneuropathy. The article lists many suggested causes, from pesticides and thorium storage to military activity and UFOs, and gives Prof Ye. Krupin's view that imported pyrethroid pesticides were to blame. A postscript notes that a Russian Ministry of Health commission blamed combined factors and cleared the pesticides.
“University of Colorado”1 page
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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1992 ## Document 2 of 12 actively obstructing the search for the causes of the tragedy, and powerful pressure is being exerted for the pesticides by the foreign firms that supply the pyrethroids. At the same time, people abroad can't even imagine exactly how the Soviet field managers can apply such powerful toxins. (In Khramtsov, for example, a concrete mixer is used to prepare the pesticide solutions.) 14. Obviously, the method chosen by the visitors from Moscow to study the problem-in assaults after each unusual incident-is ineffective. A systematic, comprehensive study is absolutely necessary. Leading specialists have to be involved. They have to have highly sensitive equipment. But what are the people supposed to do now, wait until next summer or fall? After all, there's no barrier at all today to protect against misfortune. 15. Whatever version about the cause of the poisonings turns out to be correct, this much can be said right now: The two-year drama on the fields is a drama about the Soviet state's stubborn neglect of the individual. 16. POSTSCRIPT: While this article was in press, a commission of the Russian Ministry of Health prepared a report on the results of work done in Sverdlovsk Oblast. The cause of the illness was said to be the combined action of a number of factors. The principal factors involved working conditions. Then there was weakened immunity, and adverse weather conditions. The pesticides were acquitted. Meanwhile, the ''greens'' don't agree with the conclusions of the medical people-they feel that the country's agroindustrial complex is a criminal organization, and they are getting ready to take it to court. 17. The commission's report did not bring any clarity to the matter-it failed to even comment on a number of things. What now? To a recent remark on the ''Sverdlovsk syndrome'' made by IZVESTIYA, the RSFSR State Committee for Health and Epidemiological Inspection answered this: ''a temporary inspection committee is being formed...a temporary science group is being formed for further study...a letter has been sent with a request that an international group of experts be set up...being created in Sverdlovsk is a toxicological center equipped with modern imported equipment...'' Those are all promises. They make people happy. But the enterprises that are supposed to buy the instruments for the toxicological center for hard currency are spending it for the time being primarily for sugar and meat. 18. Could this really be us, who have jabbered so much in the past about the importance of values common to all mankind?
Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 4 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.