-7-
declined to acceptable
levels, a new model village was built according to the
On June Z9, 1957, the people of Rongelap,
style preferred by the Rongelapese.
now numbering 250, were repatriated.
They came home to the finest homes with
the best support facilities to be found on any such an isolated atoll.
Medical Observations
on the Marshallese
The Atomic Energy Commission,
was centrally involved in
effects and” radiological
after their Repatriation
by way of its Division of Biology and Medicine,
these operations both as to medical and environmental
safety (l).
When the Marshallese
returned to a more or
less civilian status, the Division undertook to carry on the series of medical
surveys and continue the environmental
surveillance of the test area.
Dr. Robert A. Conard, who had been a member of the survey teams for the second
(1956) and third (1957) examinations
lead the annual surveys.
post-exposure, was chosen to organize and
Each year since then, he has led a team of medical
specialists to the Islands to examine the exposed people plus unexposed
comparison populations
of Marshallese.
As a Senior Staff Member of the Medical Department of Brookhaven National
Laboratory, Dr. Conard is in a specially favorable position to obtain the nation’s
best medical collaborations
and laboratory’s support.
For example, when urine
samples collected from the Rongelapese before and after returning to Rongelap Atoll
suggested tl~at the people misht be acquiring increased but still low-body burdens
of certain radionuclides
counter was transported
biopllysical parameters.
from the residual fallout in the soil, a whole-body
to the Islands to maintain surveillance over these
It was found that tilebody burdens of certain radionuclides
were higher than those of people in the United States, but they still were far
below the guidelines established
by the Federal Radiation Council, now EPA.