disease from exposure, indicating that their exposure must have
been considerably less than tthe people of Rengelap Island. There
igs one exception, however, and that relates to the radiation dose
to the children's thyroid which I shall address later in this
letter.
Following the return to the island, i{t was decided that continued
medical examinations of the exposed people of Utirik were to be
done.
Such examinations were conducted at regular intervals to
agsure that they had not been harmed.
Examinations were done
in 1957, 1959, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972 and 1975.
During the past
six years,
thyroid examinations were done and sick calls were
held every year in addition to complete physical examinations.
Also, for the past several years, American doctors have vieited
Utirik every three months.
In addition to examining the people who have been exposed to.
radiation,
the doctors selected a control group so that they could
compare the health of exposed and non-exposed people.
This control
group consists of unexposed people from Rongelap and is considered
quite adequate for comparison with the exposed people of beth
Rongelap and Utirik.
The slight genetic difference between the
two populations was not considered a sufficilent reason to select
& Separate control group for Utirik.
One of your questions concerned the fact that the children of the
exposed telanders (who were not themselves exposed) have not
been includad in the regular examinations.
Large groups of children
of exposed parents have been studied alsewhere.
None of these
studias revealed any radiation~caused illness or defects.
Hence,
it wag expected that the health of this group of children of
Utirik would not be affected.
Of course, all children are examined
and treated as needed at sick calis whenever the doctors visit
Utirik.
As I said earlier in this letter, many facta about radiation
were not known back in 1954 but the best available medical judgment
was used in decisions affecting the people of Uttrik.
Studying
the same problema now and with the knowledge we have today, it
appears that the dectors at that time were not aware of the degree
of exposure of the thyroid due to fallout.
This was especially
true of the children because their thyroids are much smailer.
It