International Cooperation for Post-Cherynobyl NIS Thyroid Tissue and Data Banks

The large number of thyroid tumors that have occurred in areas exposed to high levels of fallout from the Chernobyl accident raise problems of public health importance, or regulatory importance, and of scientific importance. The over-riding priority must go to matters such as diagnosis, treatment of those affected and prevention, and International Agencies are giving financial and material help in these areas. However providing the needs of the patient are not compromised, it is very important to ensure that information that may be of value to the health of future generations is not lost. International agencies are again providing financial support for a variety of joint studies, some of which are based on studies of tissues from thyroid operations carried out as part of treatment, and not required for the initial diagnosis on which treatment is based. An international coordinated approach to this problem is not in place to help Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine to establish their own comprehensive thyroid tissue and data banks and to ensure that tissue and nucleic acids are used to contribute to the understanding of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. This project has the support of the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine and the National Cancer Institute of the USA, (NCI), the European Commission (EC), the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation of Japan (SMHF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed to cooperate in supporting this project.