(Translation)
AOLET9
Asahi Shimbun
5 August 1976
High Morbidity Among Islanders Exposed to Bikini H-bomb
Disorders of Thyroid and Others Found
AEC Medical Charts of 66 Persons Obtained -by
Gensuikin Kyushu Bloc Council
“
The Kyushu Bloc Council of Gensuikin (Council Against A- and Hbombs, business manager: Kazuyoshi Yamakawa, c/o Fukuoka Prefectural
Council of Labor Unions) which has invited and treated Micronesian
Survivors exposed to fall-out from the US H-bomb test at Bikini Atoll
22 years aqo, which also caused the tragedy of the No. 5 Fukuryu-maru
{Lucky Dragon), has obtained the unreleased AEC (U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission) medical charts of 66 proximally exposed residents of
Rongelap Island.
They contain detailed information on the circumstances at the time of exposure and medical data including the afterpeffects that developed during the 19 years until 1973 and the course
’
of treatment such as are not available for A-bombed Hiroshima and NagaSpecialists who have seen the charts point out that “incidence
saki.
of thyroid abnormalities is surprisingly high and careful surveillance
must be continued against leukemia and cancer."
The Bloc Council says
it wishes to "expand its treatment program in Javan and use the charts
as data for appealing the ever increasing dread of the nuclear bomb."
According to the AEC revort, the H-bomb test was conducted on
l March 1954 and a total of 267 persons were exposed including 28
American scientists.
The AEC is sending a medical survey team to the.
islands and issuing a summary report on the survey findings every year.
However, because the United States is refusing foreign survey, teams:
entry into Micronesia, a trust territory of the US, hardly any firsthand medical data on the individual patients have been internationally
available.
The Gensuikin dispatched an investigation team in 1971, but the
team was not allowed to enter the territory.
Therefore the Kyushu
Bloc Council in May this year invited to Nagasaki for the first time
two residents of Ronqelap Island and opened a way for the Bikini survivors to receive treatment in Japan.
In the course of this, copies
of the medical charts of 66 of the 86 exposed islanders (including 4
exposed in utero) were obtained.
The Council had almost the entire
picture analyzed by specialists by the 3rd...