Antinuclear

Russia still ignoring its nuclear guinea pigs

These people were used as guinea pigs, tested, and then left to die slowly of cancer. The state does not want their tragedy recognized, because it would cost money. Nobody wants to know.

Global changes ruining the world September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action Soviet Human Nuclear Experiments Reported According to recently released reports, some 45,000 people, mainly Soviet soldiers, were deliberately exposed in 1954 to radiation from a bomb twice as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima just nine years before. At 9:33 a.m. on 14 September 1954, a Soviet Tu-4 bomber dropped a 40,000-ton atomic weapon from 25,000 feet. The bomb exploded 1,200 feet above Totskoye testing range near the provincial town of Orenburg. Thousands are believed to have died in the immediate aftermath and in the years following.

The pilot flying the Tu-4 bomber developed leukemia and his co-pilot developed bone cancer. Marshal Georgi Zhukov, Stalin’s most senior World War II Commander, safely witnessed the blast from an underground nuclear bunker. Moments after the blast, Zhukov ordered 600 tanks, 600 armored personnel carriers and 320 planes to move forward to the epicenter in order to stage a mock battle.

The experiment was designed to test the performance of military hardware and soldiers in the event of a nuclear war.There are no official figures showing how many of the 45,000 people sent to Totskoye testing range died as a result of the test. Tamara Zlotnikova, a former member of the Russian Duma, is helping survivors fight for compensation. She believes that the toll from the test was enormous.

According to Zlotnikova, “Even today, the incidence of some cancers in Orenburg, a city 130 miles from the range, is double that of the people who suffered in Chernobyl. A study carried out by the health ministry on cities with the worst health problems puts Orenburg second out of 88. Thousands died. These people were used as guinea pigs, tested, and then left to die slowly of cancer. The state does not want their tragedy recognized, because it would cost money. Nobody wants to know.”(source: The Sunday Times (UK), 24 June 2001)

Global changes ruining the world: Human Nuclear Action

December 25, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1 | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radioactive