Lead contamination of the environment in Russia.

Contamination of the environment by lead is recognised throughout the world as one of the major environmental problems. The main goal of this paper is to present objective and systematic data on this problem in Russia. Here we show that in spite of a crisis of industry, the degree of contamination of various parts of the environment in urban areas remains very high. A considerable proportion of the urban population of the country, especially children, are running the risk of a detrimental effect of lead compounds in various parts of the environment and in foodstuffs.