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The article covers experience of biologic rehabilitation through correction of algocenosis (algolization) of drinkable water basins in Nizhny Tagil industrial complex. Biologic rehabilitation of Chernoistochnik and Verhne-Vyisky drinkable water basins in 2011-2012 considerably improved water quality in ecologic hydrochemical and hydrobiologic parameters--that was proved by absent water contamination with blue-green algae, lower saprobiont index. Results also are significant lower concentration of pollutants--heavy metals (ferrum, manganese, copper), oil products, decreased odor and and better water quality in hydrochemical parameters to second class according to water pollution index.

Hygienic standardization (HS) of chemicals remains to be the one of the effective ways to ensure chemical safety of the population. At that hygienic standards (such as maximum allowable concentrations--MACs) are interrelated and aggregated into the coherent systems. Therefore, the task of the study was in establishment of the logic of inter- standard relations between the existing standards and actualization of legitimate relations of the interrelations such as MACwz/MACatm, (i.e., to systematize standards) and so as CL₅₀/MACwz (reflecting the ratio of reliability). In the suggested systemic approach the benchmark indices of the proposed HS system are the values of the MACwz. Standards for other media, including atmosphere air may be only some compartments of MACwz. The performed studies and calculations allowed to justify and implement the system approach into the practice of HS in Ukraine. There is need for further search for additional solutions in nonreachability of LC₅₀ in the experiment, justification of standards for the population in the absence of MACwz, comparison with the data of normative databases of other countries. It is necessary to introduce the value of permissible deviation from the requirements of the systemness, to embody conditions (1)-(7) into the general principle of the prohibition of greater deviation and to harmonize acting and newly introduced standards within frameworks of modern ideology and methods of HS of harmful substances. This opens up broad prospects for the new phase of HS and a significant increase in the reliability of results obtained by the various methods and in different laboratories.

The article covers systemic approaches to managing risks for public health, and development of partnership between Rospotrebnadzor institutions and socially responsible business community.

In this article there are presented the current views on the technology for the assessment of the exposure to chemical pollutants with the use of the methodology of human biomonitoring and the main advantages of the latter are highlighted. There are presented main problems of the implementation of biomonitoring studies in Russia such as: beginning with the lack of the national system of the biomonitoring, and accomplishing with the inconsistency in the data within the country, the inability to assess the trend according to levels of exposure in the regional or national context. Due to the inconvenience of the Russian regulatory basis on human biomonitoring, there is persisted technological backwardness in terms of the delivery of the design, presentation and evaluation of research results, which results in the decline of the significance of biomonitoring for public health in the country. There is preserved a need for standardization and harmonization of methods and procedures of human biomonitoring (HBM) in Russia with international requirements. A serious concern is the lack of Russian programs on standardization of procedures and interlaboratcy comparison of results according to biomarkers of the exposure, the insufficient involvement of national laboratories in international programs of the comparison, the difficulties with the acquisition of standard samples of the compositionfor different environmental pollutants in biological tissues. The restraint ofthe development of HBM in the Russian Federation is caused by a complex of reasons. The most urgent task is the development of the national concept of the system with subsequent formation of technological, institutional and organizational framework of biomonitoring, as well as the improvement of Russian normative-methodical base.

Evaluation of mutagenic activity--an indispensable element of the toxicological characteristics of chemicals in their hygienic regulation. In the article there is performed an analysis of the adopted in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in Russia guidance documents on methods of assessment of the mutagenic properties of chemicals. In the OECD there are 17 manuals, each of which describes a single method, in Russia there were approved five guidance documents for specific groups of chemicals (drugs, pesticides, nanomaterials, substances normalized in the water and the air), which represent the basic and auxiliary methods of testing mutagens. Basic methods aimed to the evaluation of gene, chromosomal and genomic mutations include: assessment of gene mutations in bacteria, methods for estimating mutations in cell cultures of human and mammals in vitro, methods for inspecting mutations in somatic and germ cells of mammals in vivo. Analysis of Russian documents shows that the protocols of basic tests of assessment of the mutagenic activity are close to the protocols of the OECD. It is necessary to publish guidance documents on tests of assessment of the mutagenic activity of chemicals harmonized with the OECD documents.

The implementation of sanitary and epidemiological auditing - a promising trend in the sanitary-epidemiological well-being of the population including children. Thus, it provides pupils' rights on the safety conditions of educational activities for their life and health without toughening of administrative influence.

The main provisions concerning the need for a creation of medical and sanitary passport for territories in the protective measures zones (PMZ) of storage facilities and facilities for the destruction of chemical weapons (FDCW) are presented in the article. The assessment of results of certification of the territory of PMZ and FDCW in "Maradykovsky" in the Kirov region has been done.

Pollution was hygienically evaluated in the area of the former chemically dangerous OAO "Kaprolaktam-Dzerzhinsk" enterprise. The soils around its production buildings were the test subject. Sampling, chemical analysis, and hygienic evaluation of the results of the analysis were made. The work done allowed the authors to plot pollution by both area and depth. The findings may be used to choose a decontamination procedure, by taking into account the degree of pollution.

Ensuring nuclear and radiation safety in the use of atomic energy is one of the most important constituents of the Russian Federation's security, which is laid down in the "Foundations of Public Policy in the nuclear and radiation safety of the Russian Federation till 2010 and Further Prospects". The radiation safety in an area is determined by not only the number of radiation objects in it, the grade of their potential radiation hazard, their maintenance, the nature of use, but also by the measures ensuring radiation safety and preventing possible radiation accidents, and the readiness for liquidation of their consequences, and the effective supervision of whether the requirements are carried out. To assure constant and effective control over radiation safety, a uniform system for the information provision of radiation safety has been developed and introduced in the Russian Federation since 1998, which includes radiohygienic certification and the uniform state system for monitoring and considering the radiation doses exposed by the residents of Russia. The 2007 radiohygienic certification covered more than 16000 organizations dealing with the sources of ionizing irradiations. A total of 202.7 million medical diagnostic radiological procedures were performed in Russia in 2007. It should be noted that the dose of medical irradiation is reduced. In general, the radiation environment in the Russian Federation is satisfactory, but in a number of its regions there are reasonably serious problems associated with the population's radiation safety.

The paper considers the basic approaches to regulating the economic activity of radioactive waste-recycling enterprises. The purposes, principles, forms, and methods for economic regulation are defined. Two ways of solving this problem are given: 1) state regulation of tariffs for basic kinds of work (operations associated with RW recycling); 2) setting standards for the basic expenditures arising in specialized organizations during RW recycling. Elaboration of a federal law on economic regulation of RW recycling is the basis of the economic regulation system.

The State sociohygienic monitoring (SHM) system is one of the most important mechanisms of providing sanitary-and-epidemiological well-being in the population. The March 30, 1999 Federal Law on Sanitary-and-Epidemiological Well-being of the Population" refers SHM to as one of the mechanisms of state regulation in this field and defines as a state system for monitoring the population's health and the environment, for analyzing, evaluating, and predicting them, and for revealing cause-and-effect relations between the population's health status and the influence of environmental factors. Much work has been recently done to establish and manage a federal information fund (FIF) that is a database on the human health status and environment, based on long-term observations and an aggregate of normative legal acts and reference materials on the analysis of prediction and determination of cause-and-effect relations between the human health status and the influence of environmental factors. FIF obtains information from a great many sources, including databases of state executive authorities. This information is open and available to the institutions and organizations involved in the establishment of FIF. The elaboration and introduction of new, more informative indices for SHM management at the present stage are one of the urgent tasks. In accordance with the May 28, 2000 decision of the Board of the Ministry of Health of Russia, with the 2003-2004 regulatory documents of the Ministry of Health of Russia, much work to improve the list of SHM indices has been under way. The draft list of SHM indices is harmonized with the indices of the European SHN information system, with the list of social diseases, approved by the Russian Federation's Government Regulation No. 715 dated December 1, 2004, and the list of national security threat indices (A 21-2162 dated August 29, 2003). The draft list has been considered by the specialists of the Federal Service for Surveillance of Consumers' Rights Protection and Human Well-being; comments have been taken into account. The draft is under reconsideration and will require approval in the near future.

The efficiency of different techniques of data collection and processing was considered by the example of bird communities. Accounted variance of the coefficients of bird complex similarity was used as the measure. Annual censuses in different sites proved more expedient than a long-term census in a single key site to study medium- and small-scale spatial heterogeneity of bird communities. Averaging and generalization of data collected in different years and sites yielded satisfactory results. Estimated informativeness in this case proved closer to the real one compared to averaged long-term data since the included representation errors in space and time.

Four clinical trials of porcine islet transplantation have been reported, and there are verbal reports that clinical trials on much larger scales are continuing in centers in China and Russia. The four reported trials are briefly reviewed and, in the light of the present status of experimental islet xenotransplantation, consideration is given to whether such trials are currently justified. The Ethics Committee of the International Xenotransplantation Association has (1) emphasized the need for encouraging studies in non-human primates before clinical trials should be undertaken, (2) mandatory monitoring for the transfer of porcine microorganisms, and (3) careful regulation and oversight by recognized bodies. Other aspects of the topic, such as the need for informed consent, are briefly discussed. We conclude that, at the present time, more data documenting convincing efficacy, focused on clinically applicable immunosuppressive regimens, are needed to justify the initiation of closely monitored clinical trials. A clinical trial may then be justified even though the potential risk to the patients, and possibly for society, will not be zero.

The article is dedicated to present-day problems of sanitary-virologic monitoring of water with different degree of pollution. The authors assess some indirect indicators of viral contamination of water and present perfected methods of water monitoring such as PCR, OT-PCR, and OT-PCR integrated with tissue culture for detecting viral RNA and DNA.

The paper considers unfavorable consequences of the use of biotesting to define the conditions of effluent discharge into water objects. Evaluation of discharge hazard by the index "no toxicity" in the biological tests has been shown to allow both safe 100-1000-fold excesses of hygienic MAC in water; routine short-term experiments on biotest objects are not informative as to the substances that have carcinogenic and other long-term and specific effects; biotesting cannot replace the existing state system of sanitary standards and regulations which remain the basis of the population's health care in the field of water hygiene and sanitary protection of water reservoirs.

The major unit monitoring chemical weapons destruction objects is a system of chemical analyticcontrol over the technologic process procedures and possibility of environment and workplace pollution withtoxicchemicals and their destruction products. At the same time, physical and chemical control means meet sanitary and hygienic requirements incompletely. To provide efficient control, internationally recognized approaches should be adapted to features of Russian system monitoring pollution of chemical weapons destruction objects with toxic chemicals.

The paper presents the results of a sanitary-and-parasitological assessment of non-centralized water supply sources (shaft and pipe wells, spring cappings) for the population. It has been shown that the water of the wells contains helminthic eggs, the proportion of positive tests varies and depends on the improvement of a water source, on the presence of a sanitary zone, etc. The water on non-centralized water supply presents a risk for infection with intestinal parasitic diseases.

Materials on the organization and realization of prophylactic measures with respect to acute enteric infections (AEI) and viral hepatitis A (VHA) at the period of the liquidation of medico-sanitary consequences of the high flood are presented. As shown in these materials, the epidemiological surveillance on AEI and VHA in the areas affected by the emergency situation included the effective system of monitoring on these diseases. On the basis of monitoring optimum decisions were taken and concrete prophylactic measures were realized. This made it possible to detect the foci of infectious diseases in due time and efficiently liquidate them, as well as to prevent the development of the epidemiological consequences of the high flood.

The paper provides a comprehensive hygienic assessment of the levels of the essential and toxic trace elements chosen in terms of regional features in drinking water and foodstuffs of locally manufactured products. Priority pollutants of drinking water and foodstuffs are defined in the eastern, western, and central lands of the Orenburg Region. A significant imbalance of essential trace elements was revealed. Daily oral intake of priority and toxic trace elements were calculated in foodstuffs and drinking water.

Information is presented on the concentrations of organochlorine pesticides (HCHs and DDT residues) and trace metals (Fe, Cu, Zn and Ni) in waters of 15 large Russian rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean during 1990-1996. Estimates of the corresponding annual fluxes are made. Other contaminants (Hg, Pb, Cr, Mn, beta-HCH and dihydroheptachlor) were examined briefly. Concentration data are presented as averaged annual means for each of the seven years with the ranges, standard deviations and numbers of samples. Also given are data on locations, the methods of analysis and limited quality assurance data. Data on discharges to the Northern Seas for the more frequently monitored contaminants are given for rivers accounting for >70% of the total northerly flows. Scaled-up fluxes to account for unmonitored rivers as well are given for each sea; totals over the period were: Fe, 1452; Cu, 15; Zn, 59 (x 10(3) t yr(-1)); alpha-HCH, 25; gamma-HCH, 44 (t yr(-1)). Ni was monitored at too few rivers to estimate its total Russian flux. The fluxes for the HCHs considerably exceed previous estimates and indicate that the Arctic Ocean is not in balance as much as was previously believed.

The social and economic category "level of life" is to become a reliable and objective instrument for assessing population health, for it reflects the true income and expenditure of a territory for the state, municipal, and private consumption. A tendency to decrease of expenditures for private consumption, observed at some territories, absence of regulation of the relationships between the existing levels of the minimal salaries and survival minimum and the population health require hygienic norm-setting in the socioeconomic sphere of health protection and the relevant state surveillance of institutions of the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service.