U.S. Urged to Link Soviet Policy on Emigration to Cancer Cooperation

American-Soviet cooperation on cancer research should be linked to a more liberal Soviet policy on emigration of cancer victims, congressmen and medical authorities said Tuesday at a House hearing.

“If the Soviets cannot come forward on the easy task of resolving the emotional anguish of the separated families, how sincere can they be in fully participating in our hopes for the future cure of cancer?” said Dr. Gerald Batist, a Montreal physician and founder of the International Cancer Patients’ Solidarity Committee.

Batist made his comments at a hearing on an agreement signed in 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union that calls for an exchange of scientists, research findings, drugs and equipment in fighting cancer.

A team of Soviet researchers is to arrive in Washington today to reaffirm the cooperation, which has declined in recent years. They will visit the National Cancer Institute on Thursday for meetings at which U.S. officials are expected to raise the emigration issue.

“To exchange information and research and not care for the patients seems to be far short of our humanitarianism,” said California Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of a House subcommittee on health and the environment that sponsored the session.

Rep. James H. Scheuer (D-N.Y.), who will join 19 other congressmen in a trip to the Soviet Union next week, said that such treatment of cancer patients by the Soviet Union is “cruel, insensitive, barbaric and beyond description.”

After hearing from officials of the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, who said the Soviets have benefited more than the United States from the research exchange, the panel heard an appeal from Leon Charney, a Soviet emigre whose brother, Benjamin, suffers from skin cancer and a heart ailment.

“I’m part of him,” Charney, 34, said of his brother, who has six times been refused permission to leave the Soviet Union. “Being separated, it’s like you cut your body in half. . . . The hardship has undoubtedly been contributing to his illness.”

Benjamin Charney, 49, speaking with Waxman and Scheuer by telephone from Moscow, said, “I have sent tens of letters to authorities, with no response.”

He said his wife, Yadviga, and daughter, Anna, began a hunger strike 15 days ago to protest the refusal to let him emigrate.

“I am deeply touched by your concern,” he said. “The best medicine for me is the exit visa.”