U.S. Group Sending $2 Million Worth of Fallout Aid to Poland

NEW YORK — Workers loaded a cargo plane Friday with a “mercy lift” of up to $2 million in powdered milk, vitamins and iodide blessed by the Pope for the people of Poland threatened with contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The mission was organized by Americares Foundation of New Canaan, Conn., whose honorary chairman is Polish-born Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

The shipment, weighing an estimated 12 tons, was valued at between $1 million and $2 million, said Americares spokeswoman Mary Tavon.

Donated by foundations, corporations, Catholic groups and members of the Polish community, the supplies were to be distributed through the Roman Catholic Church in Poland.

The Flying Tiger Boeing 747 carrying the relief supplies left Kennedy International Airport on Friday evening and was scheduled to arrive in Warsaw this morning.

The flight was delayed by an hour because of the huge amount of milk and pills that had to be loaded on the plane.

‘Magnificent Endeavor’

A cable from the Vatican to Americares said, “This mercy lift has received the enthusiastic blessings of his holiness, Pope John Paul II. In a personal statement, the Pope, who is Polish, said, “This mercy lift is a magnificent humanitarian endeavor on the part of the United States of America.”

Tavon said it is the largest relief shipment to be sent to Eastern Europe since an explosion at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl plant first spewed radiation into the air April 26.

The cargo included 100,000 pounds of protein-enriched dried milk, which amounts to 1.4 million pounds when mixed with water; 100,000 pounds of sterilized high-protein enriched milk, which requires no water or refrigeration; 1.3 million multi-vitamin tablets; and 9,000 pounds of potassium iodide, which equals 600,000 doses.

“This is a humanitarian outpouring from the people of America,” said Robert Macauley, president of Americares. “Milk, milk, milk. That is what they are mainly asking for.”

The people of Poland have been discarding their milk supplies because they fear their cows were contaminated by the radioactive cloud that spread across their nation from the nuclear blast.

Potassium iodide helps prevent the absorption of radiation by the thyroid gland. Thyroid cancer is one the most common forms of cancer caused by radiation exposure.