From: mucit@cs.rochester.edu (Bulent Murtezaoglu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: TRH News
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:50:40 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, University of Rochester

In article <9301120507.AA06329@deepthought.cs.utexas.edu> Guven.Guzeldere%STANFORD.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (hq.ggg) writes:
[lotsa good TRH stuff deleted]
>
>       TURKEY  LAUNCHES  NEW  PROBE  INTO  CNERNOBYL   DISASTER
>   AFTERAFFECTS
>       ANKARA,   TURKEY (JAN.  5)  -  Turkey has launched a new
>   probe  to  determine the extent to which  people  along  its
>   Black  Sea  coast  were affected by fallout  from  the  1986
>   Chernobyl nuclear disaster, officials said Tuesday.
>       The  move followed reports in several leading newspapers
>   of  a sharp rise since 1986  in the number of cancer victims
>   seeking  treatment in state-owned hospitals  along  Turkey's
>   Black Sea coast.

Has anyone seen the actual statistics concerning this?  Do they
exist?
[stuff deleted]
>       Turkey's   Black  Sea  coast  also  reportedly  received
>   fallout,  but the extent was not fully reported at the time,
>   and  the Turkish Union of Doctors now says the government of
>   then  Prime Minister Turgut Ozal played down the  risks  the
>   local people faced.

I was in Turkey at the time and I don't seem to remember either
this union or any of the universities making much noise about this.
Am I right?  No doubt playing down the risks without good scientific
reason was hardly a prudent move,  but what has the Turkish scientific
establishment done to assess the risks?  Does anyone know?  It would
seem that quite a few unversities were equipped to conduct a study at the 
time.  Does anyone know of any study?

>       Over the past year,  Turkish newspapers have reported  a
>   sharp  rise  in  the  number of cases of  cancer  and  other
>   disabilities  believed to have resulted from  the  Chernobyl
>   nuclear fallout in the country's Black Sea coastal region.

Are there any Turkish MD's on the net who keep up with Turkish medical 
journals?  Is there data to back this up?

>       The reports,  based on interviews with doctors in  state
>   hospitals  along the Black Sea coast,  said fallout  victims
>   included  pregnant  women who had  miscarriages,   stillborn
>   babies and seriously deformed babies, the incidence of which
>   has risen sharply since 1986.

Surely there's got to be more evidence than "interviews with Dr.'s."

>       Doctors in the region claim they and their families were
>   affected  by the fallout,  and the Turkish Union of  Doctors
>   has  filed complaints in Turkish courts charging  government
>   officials  with ''failure to take necessary  precautions  to
>   protect public health.''

I'd assume the medical men belonging to this union were aware of the
situation at the time?

>       Monday,   Aktuna said a previous study showed that  some
>   100,000   people in Turkey may have been affected by nuclear
>   fallout  after  Chernobyl,   but a more thorough  probe  was
>   needed to get the true picture.
>       The  minister  said a comprehensive list of  victims  in
>   Turkey of the Chernobyl disaster was being drawn up, and his
>   ministry  would arrange for them to be treated at government
>   expense.

So there'll be a comprehensive list.  I suspect there's no way to
make such a list.  Am I wrong?

BM
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish