[CPEO-MEF] Children's health problems near Russian spaceport

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Russian study links rocket fuel, health woes
Unpublished report sees impact on children near space launch site

By Robert Roy Britt
Space.com (MSNBC)
Updated: 4:40 p.m. ET Jan. 12, 2005

A new study out of Russia says that children in some areas near
Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome are twice as likely to require medical
attention as other children in the region.

According to an unpublished report, the cause of illness is believed to
be highly toxic fuel from spent rocket stages that spills onto the
sparsely population region. Baikonur is where Russia's space agency
conducts a majority of its space launches. The report was revealed today
in the journal Nature.

The announcement follows the release this week of a separate study of
the risk here in the United States of perchlorate, a rocket-fuel
component known to be health-threatening. The chemical has been found in
the drinking water of at least 11 million U.S. residents. Traces of
perchlorate have also been found in lettuce and milk.

The Russian study was done by Vector, the State Research Center of
Virology and Biotechnology. The researchers examined health records from
1998 to 2000 of 1,000 children in two polluted areas, along with the
records of 330 children in a nearby unpolluted area.

...

For the entire article, see
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6817699/

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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