Russia rejects the World Health Organization initiative to update its assessment of the health impacts of nuclear weapons use, defeating countries that are still working on the devastating legacy of Cold War explosions. Opposition comes when Russia threatens to resume nuclear tests amid the war in Ukraine.
In an area known as the “sacrificed zone,” where thousands of nuclear tests poisoned soil and communities were destroyed, residents continue to face cancer rates and birth defects decades after the last explosion of Soviet times. It’s there.
“The Russian delegation is not in favor of discussing this topic,” the Russian representative told the WHO executive committee on Saturday, saying, “The negative impact of the destructive factors of the nuclear explosion on humans and the environment is sufficient.” There are scientific data, and it’s already clear.”
The proposed initiative that needs to be approved by the EB to go before the World Health Assembly in May is the last revised WHO guidance on “Nuclear Weapons and the Health Impact of Nuclear War” Updated. 1993. It is co-hosted by the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and three other Pacific Island provinces, as well as Iraq and Kazakhstan. Areas that have been dropped from nuclear tests continue to have catastrophic health effects after testing explosions by either Russia or the US.
“Nuclear weapons do not discriminate and have devastating consequences for health and the environment,” said a representative from Samoa. “We need to ensure that nuclear weapons and nuclear war are fully understood for health and for humanity.”
According to a cost assessment submitted to the EB, the expert investigation costs $540,000. Kazakhstan called the cost “a modest but necessary investment in global health security.”
“The Pacific region has a painful nuclear heritage,” said a representative from the Marshall Islands. After gaining control from Japan in 1944, the US conducted 67 nuclear tests. The representative noted that “many other countries with similar nuclear heritage” would benefit from the resolution.
The initiative was rejected by North Korea, and it joined Russia in opposition. North Korea’s foreign policy relies heavily on nuclear threats, threatening nuclear attacks on targets like Guam. “A sufficient research and analysis has already been carried out in this respect,” the representative said.
The final nuclear test was carried out by North Korea in 2017. The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons prohibits all forms of nuclear testing.
Nuclear threat
Two countries opposed to WHO health research, Russia and North Korea, both face international scrutiny over the nuclear threat.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons during the invasion of Ukraine. Russia lowered the threshold for nuclear weapon use, causing warned of strengthened weapons, and deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Putin’s threat to resume nuclear tests has particular weight on countries like Kazakhstan, which are causing the wounds of Soviet-era explosions. These threats continue with Russia’s withdrawal from the new starting treaty. This is the last remaining agreement between the US and Russia to limit nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, North Korea has deepened its ties with Russia through the Ukrainian War, providing millions of shells and ballistic missiles in exchange for economic support and military technology, warning experts that it can boost nuclear capabilities. Masu.
“Additional studies proposed by many countries regarding the consequences of nuclear weapon use cannot introduce fundamentally new elements to international discourse regarding nuclear weapons,” the Russian representative said. Russia will “suppose again the issue of counterproductiveness of adopting this resolution,” he said at the World Health Rally in May.
WHO’S EB is now suspending discussions on the initiative until the end of next week’s session. The board has so far and earlier, with the exception of aid to Gaza, with the exception of its assistance to Gaza, as the WHO budget crisis triggered by a US announcement last month has withdrawn from the global health organization. We made the same move on all draft decisions and resolutions that came to the site. , that is the largest single contributor.
An unforgettable health legacy of nuclear testing
Since the invention of the atomic bomb, Russia has conducted hundreds of nuclear weapons tests amid more than 2,000 explosions around the world. The US is responsible for the largest share (almost half), followed by France, the UK and China.
These 500 tests were conducted in the atmosphere rather than underground, and emitted radiation equivalent to 29,000 Hiroshima bombs. Dispersed radioactive particles remain in soil, air and water around the test site decades later. “The legacy of nuclear testing is nothing but destruction,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in 2019.
Health effects last for generations
The health impacts last for generations. From hereditary cancers, chronic health conditions, and cancer-born limbs to infants, it continues to torment Indigenous peoples who live near more than 60 sites where nuclear explosions have occurred since 1945.
On the Kazakh steppes where Russia exploded hundreds of nuclear bombs during the Cold War, the population of nearby cities, like Semipalatinsk, was covered in radioactive ash, just 75 miles from the test site. Doctors were barred from diagnosing cancer by the government, but authorities said the tests had no adverse health effects.
“Local people began to get sick and younger. Women suffered from miscarriage, complicated pregnancy and stillbirth. According to the Carnegie Fund for Peace, babies were left with lost limbs, Down syndrome. and other disorders related to radiation exposure.
A series of studies by the Institute of Radiology and Ecology in Kazakhstan found mortality rates to be significantly higher among people exposed to radiation, increasing the risk of serious illness through children and grandchildren. Although data from the fourth generation remain under investigation, ongoing birth defects and increased cancer rates in the region suggest that fallout also affects their health.
“Traveling to a village near the previous test site has seen small children born from limbs and cancer, suggesting that the damage from the site continues to this day,” Carnegie Peamen To reported.
While Russian nuclear heritage was plagued by Kazakhstan, the United States left its own path of devastation. Hundreds of nuclear tests have been carried out on Native American lands in Arizona, Nevada and Utah, but the US government has never studied or investigated the health effects on these communities. Over 900 tests have been conducted on Shoshone Nation lands, earning the name “Most bombed people on Earth.”
Similar patterns of formal neglect persist in Pacific Island countries, with the US refusing to fully compensate its population for the widespread damage to health and ecosystems caused by nuclear tests.
“Those who have to speak to the authorities awarded by the Constitution to provide the latest science and research to support the call for peace,” said the Samoa representative. “We need to ensure that all people and the world fully understand the negative consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear war.”
Image credit: RIA Novosti Archive, comprehensive nuclear testing and van treaty organization.
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