MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) - Milk and meat produced by private farms in areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster create a major health risk to local residents, Russia's chief doctor said Monday.
"Radionuclides in food products are the main contributors to doses of internal radiation," Gennady Onishchenko told a press conference ahead of the 20th anniversary of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster.
An examination of samples taken from private dairies in contaminated areas of Russia's Bryansk Region, which borders Ukraine, has shown that 13% of local privately produced milk has a higher than normal radionuclide content, Onishchenko said.
He said produce from state-owned farms in affected areas was safer to eat due to rigorous safety controls, but warned against consuming wild berries and mushrooms.
Some 4,343 communities in 14 of Russia's regions - or about 1.5 million people - are still suffering from the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster two decades on, Onishchenko said.
Vast areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as northern Europe, were contaminated by the fallout following the April 26, 1986, explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Last week, Greenpeace said in a report that up to 600,000 people may die of cancers developed as a result of Chernobyl radiation exposure, a huge increase on UN figures putting the excess cancer death toll at 9,300.
