Belarus' Council of Ministers to amend Customs Union radiation norms

The Customs Union regulations came into power in July 2013. The strontium norm for food was greatly increased.

The regulations allowed exceeding the old norm for baby food by 13 times and by 5 times – for milk.

The previous Belarusian norms were indicated in the document RDU-99 (The Republican norms for strontium and caesium in food and drinking water). The norms were detailed by the leading Belarusian scientists. The strict norms were thought to guarantee radiation safety to Belarusians.

Euroradio warned about the problem of regulations #880 many times. The Belarusian Ministry of Agriculture and Nutrition sent us a reply the other day. The Council of Ministers is trying to restore the strict norms. The Ministry of Health, State Standard, Emergency Control Ministry and the National Radiation Safety Committee have to prepare substantiation reports proving the inferiority of regulations #880.

“The documents proving the necessity of preserving RDU-99 in our country will be studied by the Eurasian Economic Commission in the future,” deputy Minister of Agriculture Vasil Sedzin replied.

Euroradio paid attention to the strontium issue after a laboratory check of potatoes from central Belarus.

The concentration of strontium was increased by 5 times in them and it was announced to be … normal. The producers referred to the Customs Union regulations #880.

The strontium issue was not caused only by officials’ thoughtlessness. Belarus’ partners in the Customs Union have never faced the problems that can be caused by this radionuclide. Russia simply wasn’t affected by the Chernobyl disaster as much as Belarus.

According to modern scientific research, strontium-90 was not supposed to be distributed beyond the 30-km alienation zone created after the Chernobyl disaster. However, dosimetry is a fairly new type of science and we may not be aware of all the sad consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe that may await us.

Photo: svaboda.org