 -000175736
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 Document 2 of 12                                                 Page   1
 Classification:   UNCLASSIFIED       Status:        [STAT]
 Document Date:    26 Oct 91          Category:      [CAT]
 Report Type:      JPRS Report        Report Date:
 Report Number:    JPRS-ULS-92-003    UDC Number:
 Author(s):   A. Tarasov, special correspondent for IZVESTIYA, filed in
 Yekaterinburg: ""The Battle to Get the Harvest In Ended
 With Victims: Once More About the Mystery of the Ural
 Fields"; first paragraph is source introduction]
 Headline:  `Sverdlovsk Syndrome' Studied
 Source Line:  927CO105B Moscow IZVESTIYA in Russian 26 Oct 91 p 2
 Subslug:   [Article by A. Tarasov, special correspondent for
 IZVESTIYA, filed in Yekaterinburg: "The Battle to Get the
 Harvest In Ended With Victims: Once More About the Mystery
 of the Ural Fields"; first paragraph is source
 introduction]
 FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
 1.  [Article by A. Tarasov, special correspondent for IZVESTIYA,
 filed in Yekaterinburg: "The Battle to Get the Harvest In Ended with
 Victims: Once More About the Mystery of the-Ural--Fields";-first
 paragraph is source introduction]
 2.  [Text] After another massive poisoning of students at the
 Krasnoufimskiy sovkhoz (see details in IZVESTIYA, No 221), the
 harvest contingents from Ural University abandoned the fields. But
 the chain of tragic and as yet unexplained incidents was not broken:
 soon after, new victims of the potato fields were hospitalized.
 3.  Ten of them were students from Sverdlovsk Institute of the
 National Economy. They had been gathering potatoes at the
 Chatlykovskiy sovkhoz, several dozen kilometers from the fields in
 which, in 1989, the phenomenon of the poisonous phantom was first
 officially recorded and about the same distance from the fields the
 unusual event had happened with the university students that fall.
 Two more stricken-students from Ural Polytechnical Institute. One had
 been doing a "working semester" in Kamenskiy Rayon of the oblast,
 the other in the Beloyarskiy Rayon. Cases of the illness had also
 been noted in the Sysertskiy and Polevskiy rayons.
 4.  There are a great multitude of versions of the cause of the
 incident. Among them are these: the sickness is the result of
 violations in the procedures for use of pesticides; the result of a
 complex of chemical compounds; acid rain; technogenic pollution
 formed in the course of the decomposition and interaction of a poison
 III
 Approvec for Release
 UNCLASSIFIED                a / S2QjL__
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 unknown to science. And then there are these: the cause is an anomaly
 of geological structure of those territories; the specific
 composition of the soil; the mafia blocking the harvest of the
 potatoes in order to spiral up the prices for a "second bread " ;
 intrigues of UFOs; poisonous mosquitoes. Not a single one of the
 suggestions has been proven, but none has been refuted.
 5.  Such an array of versions is remarkable in and of itself.  After
 all, many of them, except for perhaps only the last few, are not at
 all far-fetched, and there's some basis for most of the suggestions.
 It's ridiculous, of course, to blame weakened immunity or
 avitaminosis of the city people as the main cause of the group's
 injuries to the peripheral nervous system. But the USSR Ministry of
 Health commission, in investigating the circumstances of one of the
 unusual incidents, could not help but note the acute deficiency of
 vitamins B and C and the weakened state of the bodies of those
 stricken. Some specialists indicate that isolated incidents of the
 strange ailment were noted long before 1989. And maybe the worsened
 supply of fruits and vegetables to the Ural people of recent years
 played a role of its own in the outbreak of the illness.
 6.  Or how about the entirely improbable "hypotheses" voiced "in a
 delirium," which bring into play the military, radiation, or some
 sort of natural anomalies? Were those versions born on arid soil?
 Issue No 162 of IZVESTIYA wrote of the Krasnou#imskTi storage
 facilities, where behind plank fences are kept ore that contain
 thorium-and the unusual incidents are occurring just a few kilometers
 from those facilities. The version about the military? The outbreak
 of anthrax in Sverdlovsk in 1979 is not forgotten, and that's why the
 attitude toward the military is particularly suspicious. What goes on
 behind the "postal box" fences is known to only a small circle of
 people. (It wasn't until 16 September of this year that the oblast
 executive committee allowed the oblast health-epidemiological station
 to visit, for "reasons of environmental protection," the facilities
 of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.)
 Natural anomalies? They exist, too. Above the fields of the village
 of Pridannikovo, where the students suffered the paralysis, local
 people observed a "tipsy" rainbow several weeks before the arrival
 of the city people-the ends of the are rested not on the ground, but
 above, in the clouds.
 7.  But the most mysterious thing about the "potato" detective
 story is the position taken by the people in power. It remains
 unchanged, even though the people who formulated it have changed more
 than once. The people in power continue to fight for the harvest with
 the same valor. Two years ago, the number of those sent away could
 not stop the flow of new harvest contingents to the front with the
 unknown illness. It's the same today-the place where losses were
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 taken and university students were demoralized on the Krasnoufimskiy
 fields has been filled with amazing persistence with students from
 the Institute of Railroad Engineers, local schoolchildren, and tank
 crews from the Volga-Ural Military District.
 8.  Two years ago, the Uralenergochermet enterprise refused to pay
 for the sick leave of Nadezhda B., a Uralenergochermet engineer who
 became ill after five and a half hours of work at the Khramtsovo
 sovkhoz, despite the diagnosis made for her-the same one made for all
 the victims of the Ural fields, toxic polyneuropathy.  Despite the
 note made on the sick leave chart ("production accident") and
 despite the paperwork, signed by the sovkhoz director, which named
 the cause of the poisoning as combined action of pesticides.  Today,
 Nadezhda is working at a different facility, but when we were talking
 with her about meeting her, she asked that we not call her at work
 and not use her name in the newspaper-"people who are sick aren't
 needed in the workplace, especially people like us." Just as in
 1989, the state is still doing what it can to make Nadezhda herself
 feel guilty for the illness.
 9.  The unusual incident of this year happened on fields where the
 health-epidemiological station has yet to find any traces of toxic
 substances. That's why, in the words of the chief neuropathologist of
 the oblast, Prof Ye.  Krupin, a fairly difficult struggle lies ahead
 in the attempt to prove that the students aren't dragging--their--feet--
 out of capriciousness.
 10.  So, in the "Sverdlovsk syndrome," besides what's unique,
 there's also something that's standard, even hateful.
 11.  By the way, Krupin, who has seen those stricken with the
 mysterious sickness, has advanced his own version for the cause of
 the illness: the mystery lies in the incomprehensible use of a new
 generation of imported pesticides-pyrethroids. According to the
 professor's data, they have lost their ability to walk on the very
 farms in the oblast that have such toxins-particularly the
 neurotropic compounds tsimbush and sumicidin.
 12.  Indirectly supporting Krupin's version is this fact: in letters
 to IZVESTIYA about the mystery of the toxic fields, some readers have
 described in detail the symptoms they suffered after working in a
 field-and those symptoms are very similar to the symptoms of-the Ural
 sickness. What's noteworthy is the return addresses on the
 letters-Belarus, Ukraine, the Volga region. There, as in the Urals,
 the use of pyrethroids has been sanctioned to control the Colorado
 beetle and other pests.
 13.  Krupin says this: there are influential officials who are
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 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 w   eend -imunity,nf-
 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?

