Wersgall
ingested the largest amounts of radiation of
any known population. and they concluded
that ic was necessary to move the people off
the island as soon as possible.
History sadly repeated icself in August
1978, as U.S. Ships once again entered Bikini
lagoon. and the 139 people on che island
packed up their possessions and left. No one
has been allowed to live there since then.
Living Laboratory
way of accurately predicting the levels of in-
ternal doses of radiation, short of moving
people to the island and studying them over
the years. That is exactly what they did. and
in this sense the Bikinians’ suspicions are well
founded.
On seeingthesite of the Bravo shot
. .. the Bikinians declared that
their islands had lost their bones.
The experiences of the people of Bikini
since 1946 prove Murphy's Law. Anything
that could go wrong did. But why? Whydid
the AEC ad hoc committee conclude in 1968
that Bikini was safe? Whar led the AEC in
1971 to srate that the water was safe? Why
did the Bikini resettlement begin before all
the facts were known?
There is a strong feeling among Bikinians
that they were moved back to Bikini as hu-
man guinea pigs in order toenable U.S. scien-
tists co measure the long-term effects of lowlevel radiation. They point. for example. to
a 1976 study prepared for DOE thar concluded:
Bikini Atoll may be the only global source
of data on humans where intake via ingestion is thought to contribute the major
fraction of plutonium body burden. . .
It is possibly the best available source of
data for evaluating the transfer of plutonium across the gut wall after being incorporated into biological systems.
DOE vigorously denies the charge that it
used Bikini asa living laboratory, but serious
questions are raised by the AEC’'s decision in
An equally troublesomefactor in the AEC's
decision-making process was what seems ta
have been shecr negligence. To estimate in
ternal doses of radiation. the AEC needed to
know something about the diet of people who
would be living on Bikini. Lacking detailed
information, the AEC referred to a 1957 re-
port by an AEC researcher on the diet of other
people living in the Marshall Islands. This
study predicted that the Bikinians’ entire
daily intake of coconut meat and milk. the
only liquid in their diet. would be nine grams.
or several teaspoonsful.
This figure was obviously wrong. The
author of the report has suggested that the
nine-gram figure in the AEC study may have
been a typographical error. In fact. recent reports revealed chat the correct figure is closer
to 600 or 700 grams. Whatever the reasons
for the error, it rendered the AEC’s internal
dose assessment calculations ludicrous.
Carter administration officials and the Congress concede that America neglected the Bi-
kinians in the past. but they have promised to
rectify three decades of mistakes and bungling. To a limited extent. their promise has
1968 to move people back to Bikini Island.
Ignorance was a major factor in the AEC’s
decision. Scientists in 1968 could make reasonably accurate estimates of the long-term
risks associated with external radiation on
Bikini, but-external doses constituted only
10 to 15 per cent of the islanders’ total exposure. The bulk came from internal doses,
the results of drinking contaminated well
water and ingesting food grown in Bikini’s
radioactive soil. Scientists in 1968 had no
been kept. Congress, under the strong leadership of Representatives Phillip Burton (D.California) and Sidney R. Yates (D.-IHinois),
has passed legislation providing for periodic
radiological surveys of Bikini Atoll, updated
radiation dose assessments, and a comprehensive health-care program for the people
of Bikini. It has also appropriated $6 million for a trust fund for the Bikinians, as well
as $1.4 million for direct distribution to
90.
91.