Thyroid Abnormalities Small growths (neoplasms) were felt in the thyroids of three young girls at 9 and 10 years post exposure. They were subsequently operated upon and “their thyroids totally or partially removed. Since that time in 1963, operations for thyroid nodules have been performed on 20 people, 17 from the Rongelap exposed, one from Ailinginae, Rongelap not exposed one from Utirik, to the original fallout. and one person from While it is generally acknowledged that most of these nodules are nonmalignant (not cancerous), operations were performed for two reasons, (1) and the thyroids were no longer (2) for removal based on the fact that the to check for possible malignancy, functioning and.to anticipate the possibility of the growths turning malignant at a later date. In all, four of these nodules were found to have "malignant lesions" according to a report from Dr. Conard. (See appendix summarizing the 1972 survey). As explained before, it was known that the thyroids of been exposed to doses near or above tolerance. of exposed children, the persons had However, especially in the case the differing size of the thyroid was not taken into consideration and this resulted in little expectation of later nodule development. Despite this fact, and probably in consideration of thyroid findings in exposed Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the thyroid was watched carefully in all of the surveys and various tests were conducted to try and locate ~-- short of surgery -~- any possible abnormalities. These tests, however, failed to indicate any future possible problems because of the presence of an unusually high amount of certain chemicals (iodoprotein) in the Marshallese compared to Americans. Thus it was that the eleven and twelve year report commented chat: m6 035 ™