VENTURA : Soviet Doctors Tour for Atomic Test Ban

Two Soviet physicians are visiting Ventura for three days as part of a U.S. tour to gather support for a nuclear test ban treaty that will be brought before the United Nations in January.

Vladimir Popov, 29, an eye surgeon, and Zura Keshileva, 50, a dermatologist, are being sponsored by the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a national organization concerned with ending all nuclear testing.

“We hope to stop nuclear madness and need your help,” Popov told a gathering at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Ventura. “We want to save the future for our children and for all of us.” Popov is secretary of the Soviet equivalent of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Keshileva directs the Institute of Dermatology in Kazakhstan, a republic in western Asia where both above- and below-ground nuclear testing has been conducted since 1949.

Popov said that, compared to the general population of the area, three times as many children living near the Kazakhstan test site are mentally retarded and five times as many have genetic disorders.

Anemia, cancerous tumors, neurological disorders, immune deficiencies and low white-blood-cell counts are far more common among the adult population in the test-site area than in adults elsewhere.

The two doctors visited an atomic test site near Reno as part of their three-week tour. Popov said he hoped the United States will release its own statistics about medical problems of residents near the Nevada nuclear test site. “It works the same on both sides of the planet,” he said.

Popov is optimistic about the ban. “It will take time and energy. We need your help. It will take money from our military budget, so we need guarantees from your country that we can do it together.”

Bob Dodge, a Ventura physician and chapter president, explained the status of the proposed ban. “Most nations have agreed to sign the test ban. The U.S. has not and has used various guises, such as the need to test reliability of the weapons.

“Most nuclear weapons engineers say that is not true, that the testing is only to produce new and more sophisticated nuclear weapons. The impact is that non-nuclear nations have said they will begin their own testing if there is not a global ban. So we’re at an important juncture in history.”

During their Ventura stay, the Soviet doctors visited hospitals, Russian-language classes at Ventura and Camarillo high schools, and agricultural facilities.

The physicians organization and the Star-Free Press will co-sponsor a public forum in which the visiting doctors will discuss political changes in the Soviet Union tonight at 7:30 at the Poinsettia Pavilion, 3451 Foothill Road in Ventura.

Physicians for Social Responsibility is associated with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.