THE NEED FOR CONTINUATION OF STUDIES OF RADIATION CONTAMINATION
OF BIOTIC FORMS AT THE BIKINI AND ENIWETOK TESTING GROUNDS

In the years 1945-1951 inclusive,

this country detonated

a total of twenty-four (24) atomic bombs.
were essentially tests of bomb efficiency,

These detonations
for even the two

detonations over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

were experimental models and contributed much to our understanding of the forces involved.

In twenty-two of the tests

the physical forces involved were evaluated and some attention
paid to the immediate biological problems in as much as they
constituted potential health hazards of varying degrees.
Some of the tests,

notably the Bikini experiments and

the Eniwetok testing program in the spring of 1951,

included

biological testing of the effects of external exposure to
neutrons and gamma rays, while only the Bikini underwater test
included an exploratory phase of the effects of radiation contamination from residual fission products and induced

radia-

tion.
The subsequent studies made after the testing program

at Alamogordo, New Mexico, by the Atomic Energy Project, University of California at Los Angeles, and those at Bikini and
Eniwetok for the resurveys conducted by the Commission through

Select target paragraph3