COVINGTON & BURLING Mr. Wallace O. Pace Five December 17, Green 1980 Although firm, credible, scientific data is not now available to definitively determine the existence of radiation related health effects in the Marshall Islands, the limited information which has been gathered is profoundly disturbing. In May of 1979, the Government of the Marshall Islands presented to the United States the data gathered from an informal questionnaire answered by many of the people of Likiep Atoll. The people reported repeated incidences of birth defects, thyroid abnormalities and other health problems of a nature frequently found to be radiation related. The United States promised in June of 1979 to send doctors to provide medical care to these people, but the doctors still have not arrived. Similar reports of such health problems repeatedly are heard throughout the Marshall Islands. Moreover, the health statistics included in the Loma Linda report itself, particularly the death statistics in Table 4 on page 10 of the Health Status Section of the report, evidence a great number of deaths from causes frequently linked to radiation exposure. The Loma Linda report, however, passes over this data without comment. . The Loma Linda report apparently accepts at face value conclusions reached by Brookhaven National Laboratories regarding the "normal incidence" of certain diseases in the Marshall Islands. These conclusions rely on comparisons made between some of the people of Rongelap and a supposed “control population" of other Rongelap people and Marshallese people of other atolls. As the Government of the Marshall * Islands previously has pointed out, the concept of a control ‘population is wholly inappropriate within the Marshall Islands, where all atolls received exposure to radiation from the weapons testing program and where people and food stuffs from the more heavily exposed areas have travelled throughout the Marshall Islands. The Loma Linda report states this problem quite well on page 12 of the Health Status section, but fails to address the’ linkage between the lack of a viable control population and the invalidity of conclusions, predicated on the false concept of a control group, reached in much of the existing learning. In view of the radiation exposure received by the entire Marshall Islands, in varying levels, as a result of the nuclear weapons testing program, and the known and suspected, long and short term health effects of both high