
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 24, 1993                   TAG: 9312240071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

CHEMICAL ARMS STILL TAKE TOLL

Tens of thousands of workers died while producing chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union, and about 1 million people live in contaminated areas where cancer rates are high and many babies are born sick or with abnormalities, Russian scientists said Thursday.

"From the medical point of view, our preparations for chemical war had disastrous consequences," said chemist Lev Fyodorov, president of the independent Union for Chemical Safety.

At a news conference, the scientists detailed the extensive ecological and medical damage they say resulted from the Soviet chemical weapons program, which remains largely a secret.

Fyodorov said the Russian government was doing little to unveil past secrets and help those people affected. There was no immediate official reaction to the charges.

Official casualty figures or details on the dumping and contaminated sites never have been published. The numbers provided Thursday appeared to far exceed Western estimates.

The Union for Chemical Safety is a relatively new group focused on raising public awareness of the extent of ecological damage wreaked during the Soviet era. Its members include well-respected scientists such as Fyodorov and Vladimir Uglev, who spent years in the Soviet chemical weapons program.

The former Soviet Union began producing chemical arms in 1924 in Moscow, and production later spread to other regions, becoming especially intensive before and during World War II, Fyodorov said. Russia officially stopped production last year.

Fyodorov estimated "tens of thousands" plant workers died, most before the mid-1950s, from effects of poisonous substances.

World War II-era factories had no proper means of protection, dumped contaminated water into rivers, could not filter gas discharges and burned dangerous materials such as mustard gas at open sites, he said.

"Only two people who worked at the shop No. 4 in Chapayevsk, [a central Russian town] where they produced mustard gas, remain alive. Just two women from shop No. 5, where artillery shells were filled with gas, have survived," Fyodorov said. "The rest are all dead."

by CNB