The Alaska-Siberia medical program: 24 years in retrospect.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this paper is to give the reader some idea of life in Siberia and Alaska during the creation of our first medical exchanges during the most difficult of political times.

STUDY DESIGN

Various projects were designed using National Institutes of Health (NIH) criteria for our medical exchange.

METHODS

As we took these first steps between the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR and the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage, USA, the general areas of our first studies were: (1) Circadian Rhythm and Work-Related Injuries in the North; (2) Alcohol and its Abuse with Treatment Methodologies; (3) Public Health Administration and Design in the Far East and Alaska; (4) Cystic Echinococcosis in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic; (5) Viral Hepatitis in the Arctic; (6) Cardiology; (7) Nutrition; and (8) Diabetes Prevention.

RESULTS

A film made by the University of Alaska which was shown on PBS' "Breaking the Ice: The Alaska-Siberia Medical Research Program"; various papers and books published on both sides; and a major contribution made to world peace through the medical workers on both sides of the Bering Sea.

CONCLUSION

This major effort for peace showed the world how the peoples of Siberia and Alaska could come together and work for world peace through joint collaborations. Native people were reunited after years of separation, new avenues were created in anthropology, biology and medicine, and, subsequently, the border was again opened between our peoples.