'SVERDLOVSK SYNDROME' STUDIED

• Document Type: FOIA
• Keywords: UFO SPECIAL COLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005517548
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2011
• Case Number: F-2010-00651
• Publication Date: October 26, 1991

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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?