Apple pectin  - Why?

Annexe 2  (News from relegation N°2)

(Written report submitted to the Swiss and French Ambassadors in Minsk, June 30 and July 1 2004.)

Is an attempt being made to cover up the pathogenic role of caesium 137 incorporated into children's organisms?

Pectins are natural sugars (polysaccharides) found in a variety of fruits.  In the form of a jelly-forming sugar they are used in cooking for making jam.

For medical purposes, purified pectin pills have been marketed by pharmaceutical companies to treat heavy metal intoxication, such as lead and mercury.  SANOFI are reported to be the first firm to have marketed this product but other companies, especially in Germany, have also sold these natural products which cannot be patented as nutritional additives.

Two Ukrainian companies have developed apple pectin for the treatment and the prevention of incorporated Cs137 illnesses in children living in regions contaminated by Chernobyl fallout. One of these companies has produced an effervescent pectin pill in Belarus marketed under the name of Yablopekt®.

Professor Nika Gres of Minsk has carried out a study of the effectiveness and tolerance of various preparations of apple pectin with subjects suffering from lead poisoning.  These preparations have proved to be effective for the elimination of heavy metals and they are also well tolerated.   They do not trigger any deterioration of elements necessary to the organism, such as iron or cobalt.

Professor Nesterenko has made a comparative study of the Ukrainian effervescent pills of apple pectin and seaweed, reputed for its ability to fix caesium (spirulin), and also of a preparation developed in Minsk from dried apple residue after the juice has been extracted.  This preparation, containing 15 – 16% pectin has been analysed by experts of the European Commission Research Centre at Ispra.    Mixed with water or milk this galenic form is better tolerated by children while retaining, at least, the same level of efficiency as spirulin.   It was based on these results that Belrad took the decision to develop this product, enriched by vitamin and trace elements and marketed under the name of Vitapect®.  Vitapect® is registered in Belarus and is distributed to children living in villages with severe levels of radiation for courses of treatment lasting 3 or 4 weeks.   Approximately 100 000 Belarus children have been treated with this product accompanied by a radiometric control of Cs137 both before and after the treatment.

Experimental research has shown that in rat populations a caesium and strontium (Cs137 and Sr90) contaminated diet results in contamination of the animals' organs.  When apple pectin is added to the diet, radionuclide contamination ceases in these animals.

A different chelating agent is commonly used for cows - Prussian blue (ferrocyanure) - to reduce the contamination of milk by Cs137.  This method is recommended by the IAAE in agronomy.  However, the cow dung, unfortunately necessary for enriching the soil, contains a higher level of Cs137 with a consequent increased level of contamination of vegetables and forage after manuring.

Nesterenko has demonstrated the beneficial effect and the high level of tolerance in  Cs137-contaminated children subject to a radiologically clean diet in a sanatorium. (see Swiss Medical Weekly – www/SMW.ch - Feb 2004)  This effectiveness, even in the absence of Cs137 in the food, can be explained by a certain instability of Cs137 in human tissues.   The mobility of Cs137 facilitates its gradual elimination - essentially thanks to the bile - while the oral ingestion of pectin prevents immediate reabsorbtion of Cs137 on reaching the small intestine.

Nesterenko has also shown that four-week courses of treatment repeated 3 to 4 times per year prescribed to children in schools located in severely contaminated villages can limit the level of corporeal Cs137 to below a level of 50 Bq/kg, the threshold at which Bandazhevsky observed irreversible lesions in the heart, eye, the immune system,  endocrine and other organs.

(Bandazhevsky Y.I. Chronic Cs137 incorporation in children's organs, SMW 133 : 488-490, 2004 www.SMW.ch

Bandajevsky Y.I. & Bandajevskaya G. revue de cardiologie française CARDINALE Tome XV, No 8 p40-43, oct. 2003).

 

Today, in the contaminated regions, 80% of the irradiation is internal, caused by radionuclides incorporated in a certain number of organs such as the endocrine glands the thymus, the heart.  The remaining contamination is external.

This being the case and from the standpoint of medical ethics, it is intolerable that measurements of high levels of Cs 137 in food - implying a high level in children's organisms – should be undertaken without, at the same time, providing a course  of treatment of apple pectin (supposing that long term evacuation is not feasible).  This would be the equivalent of detecting a Koch bacillus in children's sputum while neglecting to provide appropriate treatment for tuberculosis.

Furthermore, to refuse to recognise such treatment is also to obscure the work of those researchers who have demonstrated the radiological cause of serious illnesses appearing as a consequence of Chernobyl fallout (Bandajevsky, Bandajevskaya, Veliseeva, Gres, etc.,  and more than 10 others from the Gomel medical faculty.)

The IAEA, just as the CEPN (founded by EDF and the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique) refuses to acknowledge the pathogenic nature of incorporated Cs137.   As a result, the ETHOS project, under the direction of the CEPN is rejecting the facts.  Professor Ollagnon, agronomist of the ETHOS group says:   "We have carried out some good work but the children's health is worsening."  The Pinsk paediatrician confirmed at Stoline during the ETHOS congress in November 2001 the sanitary disaster. She notes a continual decline in the children's health and an increase in hospitalisation of severe cases (10 times higher than pre-Chernobyl)

This decline in health during the 5 year project has been uninterrupted and without the slightest indication of a levelling off.

It is not tolerable to go on denying children protection from chronic Cs137 radioactive pollution

Dr. méd. Michel Fernex    
BP167, 4118 Rodersdorf,
Prof. honoraire,
Faculté de Médecine de Bâle

le 27 mai 2004