The activists set up a small laboratory near the entrance to the
ministry. On the ad hoc table there is a simulated lab rat, frog,
rabbit and.. and a human child in formalin. "Kids Ain't No Lab
Objects" reads the banner near the "laboratory". About fifty toy
babies in glass jars were left on the steps of the Ministry as a
reminder to officials about experiments on children.
Greenpeace activists demand that the Ministry of Health ban the
use of GMO (genetically modified organisms) in Russia, as well as
to immediately stop the experimental studies on the impact of
radiation on residents of the Chelyabinsk region. These demands
were handed to Ministry officials during the protest.
"Last year, a ban on transgenes in baby food was imposed in
Moscow. However, the experiment is still underway in other cities",
says Natalia Olefirenko, GM food campaigner from Greenpeace Russia.
"The health of Russian children is quite poor; more than 70 percent
of children, according to the Ministry of Health, have health
problems, while infant mortality is more than four times higher
than the European level. The wide distribution of GM food can
further aggravate the situation".
Greenpeace only managed to obtain information about the findings
of the study on the safety of GMO carried out by the Nutrition
Institute of the Russian Academy of Science (RAS) through court.
This is not surprising: the findings show that GM species have less
vitamins, less essential micro and macro elements and less fatty
acids than their conventional equivalents. In addition, they also
had a negative impact on the heath of laboratory animals: they
caused chemical imbalances in blood and urine as well as kidney
malfunctions. Similar findings were made by independent Russian and
European scientists. Nevertheless, the Ministry of Health declared
14 GM crops safe and permitted their use in food production,
including baby food.
"Unfortunately, it's very difficult to advocate for the ban of
GMO safety certificates through court. Greenpeace filed a suit
against the Federal Service for Supervision in the area of
protection of consumers' rights and human welfare, but the legal
proceedings are being dragged out illegally ", continues Natalia
Olefirenko. "Nevertheless, the decision must now be made at the
federal level in order to protect all Russian children from a
cynical and cruel experiment".
Radiation is another poison, though invisible. Living in
contaminated areas caused death and disease for residents of the
villages of Tatarskaya Karbolka, Muslyumovo and Musakaevo in the
Chelyabinsk region, located next to a facility processing
radioactive materials from the Mayak plant. After a number of
accidents at the plant, most people were evacuated from the area.
However, about ten thousand people, including a thousand children,
still live in contaminated territory. Indeed, they were left as a
unique group for research into the impact of small radiation doses
on cancer occurrence.
"Information about the frightening consequences of accidents at
the Mayak plant and about the village of Muslyumovo became public
after the Chernobyl disaster. Before that, Muslyumovo was a
"secret" object for medical experiments aimed at the evaluation of
the impact of chronic irradiation on the human body", says Vladimir
Chouprov, Greenpeace energy campaigner. "For a long time, the
government refused to solve the problem. Only last year was a
government program launched to move the residents of Muslyumovo
from the contaminated territories. However, people were resettled
to the other side of the village - closer to the cemetery. The
experiment continues".
The children of Muslyumovo are not the only victims of
radiation. More than three million people live in contaminated
areas in Russia. Among them are hundreds of thousands of children,
many of them suffering from cancer, blood and thyroid gland
diseases, and malfunctions of the immune, bone, and muscle systems.
The number of children with congenital defects in the "closed"
nuclear cities is twice the national average.
Greenpeace demands the urgent resettlement of people from the
contaminated villages of the Chelyabinsk region to clean areas,
without lowering their living standards, as well as the
organization of additional medical examination of the population,
first of all of children living in radiation contaminated
territories.
For further information please contact:
+7 495 426 5045 - Greenpeace Russia, +7 903 739 4956 - Natalia
Olefirenko, +7 903 129 4651- Vladimir Chouprov, as well as press
officer Vera Bakasheva - +7 903 219 3287.
Notes for the editor:
1. Wide spread consumption of GMO in Russia can aggravate the
adverse demographic situation in Russia. According to the WHO, 15%
of Russian women (about 10 mln people) are sterile.
According to the Russian Ministry of Health and Social
Development, as of February 2007, more than 70 percent of children
have health problems. The infant mortality rate is four times
higher than in Europe (based on the European method, where
mortality is registered for babies whose weight at the moment of
birth does not exceed 500 grams). In 2005, 20 babies out of 1000
died. More than 50 percent of babies die because of a nonviable
fetus or deathly malformation of a fetus.
In recent years, the number of babies with congenital
malformations increased, and there is no tendency toward decreasing
the rate of disease.
2. In 2005, the independent expert Irina V. Ernakova, PhD in
biology, carried out an experiment in order to detect a possible
negative impact of GM soy in offspring. Adding GM soy in the food
of female rats caused the death of half of baby rats. A third of
the rest were underdeveloped (were smaller in weight and size).They
also had malfunctions of the kidney, testicles, and other organs.
There were also problems with raising the second generation of rats
from the "GM soy" group.
3. The governmental program of resettlement offers three options
for residents of Muslyumovo:
- to get compensation of a million roubles and to use it to
purchase a place to live anywhere in the country. However, because
of bureaucratic obstacles, it's very difficult to get this money;
people are forced to agree on two other options. Besides, this
money is not sufficient - it's is only enough to buy a room in a
communal apartment or a house in the country without land.
- to move to Kunashak. This option was also rejected. None of
the residents agreed to go there.
- finally, just to move to another end of the village called
Novoye Muslyumovo (New Muslyumovo), which is two kilometres closer
to a cemetery.