Chernobyl: negative effects on children's health
After the Chernobyl nuclear accident on April 26, all children in the contaminated territory participated in yearly medical examination
30.05.2008 |Environmental Health 2008
Exposure from the Chernobyl accident had adverse effects on erythrocytes, leukocytes, and platelets in children in the Narodichesky region, Ukraine. A 6-year follow-up study.
Eugenia Stepanova , Wilfried Karmaus , Marina Naboka ,Vitaliy Vdovenko , Tim Mousseau , Viacheslav M Shestopalov , John Vena , Erik Svendsen , Dwight Underhill and Harris PastidesAbstract
(provisional)
Background: After
the Chernobyl nuclear accident on April 26, 1986,
all children in the contaminated territory of the
Narodichesky region, Zhitomir Oblast, Ukraine, were
obliged to participate in a yearly medical examination.
We present the results from these examinations
for the years 1993 to 1998. Since the hematopoietic
system is an important target, we investigated
the association between residential soil density
of 137Caesium (137Cs) and hemoglobin concentration,
and red blood cell, platelet, and leukocyte
counts in 1,251 children, using 4,989 repeated
measurements taken from 1993 to 1998.
Methods
Soil
contamination measurements from 38 settlements were
used as exposures. Blood counts conducted using the
same auto-analyzer in all investigations for all years.
We used linear mixed models to compensate for the
repeated measurements of each child over the six year
period. We estimated the adjusted means for all markers,
controlling for confounders.
Results
Data
show a statistically significant reduction in red and
white blood cell counts, platelet counts and hemoglobin
with increasing residential 137Cs soil contamination.
Over the six-year observation period, hematologic
markers did improve. In children with the higher
exposure who were born before the accident, this
improvement was more pronounced in the white blood
cell and platelet counts, and less for red blood cells
and hemoglobin. There was no exposure x time interaction
in 702 children who were born after the accident.
The exposure gradient persisted in this sub-sample.
Conclusions
The
study is the first longitudinal analysis from a large
cohort of children after the Chernobyl accident. The
findings suggest persistent adverse hematological effects
associated with residential 137Cs exposure.
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