UNITED STATES
.
ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20543
403528
October 11, 1965
MEMORANDUM FOR CHAIRMAN SEABORG
COMMISSIONER PALFREY
COMMISSIONER RAMEY
COMMISSIONER TAPE
e Gindp Lee
fe THROUGH GENERAL MANAGERfre
SUBJECT:
RECENT INFORMATION ON THYROID DISEASE IN THE
MARSHALLESE ISLANDS
Dr. Robert A. Conard of the Medical Department, Brookhaven National
Laboratory, has just returned from an interim visit to the Marshall
Islands to check on possible further development of thyroid abnormalities in the Rongelapese accidentally exposed to fallout on
March 1, 1954.
He was accompanied by Dr. J. E. Rall, a consultant
thyroid specialist of the National Institutes of Health.
It will be recalled that, as of mid-summer, benign nodules had been
found in a total of five adolescents exposed at ages of two to seven
years; one adult female, forty-one years old, had been found to have
a malignant nodule. All successfully underwent surgery for removal
of the abnormal tissue. Attached is a copy of our July 12, 1965,
memorandum to you describing the successful surgery for two children
and the adult.
During the current August examination, nodules were found in three
additional adolescents and two adults.
The contours of the thyroids
of two more adolescents, two young adults, and one man approaching
middle age were sufficiently different from normal to cause
Drs. Conard and Rall to describe them as questionable.
To summarize, there are now eleven of eighty-two Marshallese with
definite abnormalities of their thyroid tissues and five more are
considered questionably so.
86
306 U.SRPOMARCH GY
COMMISSION
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