~: What we do know about the cause, about iodine-131 causing thyroid cancer is that it takes quite a long time for the cancer to appear after We also know that the iodine-131 has a the radiation exposure occurs. short enough half-life that if it caused the cancer in the thyroid, by the time the cancer shows up the iodine is no longer there. So the measurement that Suzanne is suggesting that might determine how much iodine is in the thyroid at the time the cancer is there has nothing to do with how the cancer was caused. Whether it is high or low, it has nothing to do with it because it wouldn’t still be there if it had caused it. [Alice continued presentation Marshallese: in Marshal lese. ] I am asking about the last sentence of the paragraph that was just read, which is on page 26. In other words we are comparing populations now, if you compare the population of the Marshalls with the population of Yap, it’s not greater in the Marshalls than in Yap? Bair: What is not greater? Buck: The number of birth defects that occurs in a given population. Bair: The information that I have seen in a report that appeared in 1978, I think, did not show any difference territories, in any of the territories, in the trust in any of the communities of the trust territories. You couldn’t distinguish one from another in terms of birth defects, cancer, or other disease. Buck: In Micronesia your saying? Yes. Bair: It was in the five-year health plan for the trust territories. Marshallese: I have seen a report that indicates that there has been an increase in the number of defects since the bomb tests, and I don’t see how 14