Dr. W. W. Burr -2- December 14, 1976 that the bio-assay program is really environmental surveillance. We have said that we will use it to confirm that our predictions our assurances to the people - were sound. This is the way we have explained urine sampling and whole body counting. And we have said that long before the concentrations of radionuclides in people would reach levels which would be significant to health we would detect the uptake and be able to take protective or preventive action. Now, rightly or wrongly, the people have been told that they are taking up plutonium, and one of ERDA's own doctors has said that fhe does not know whether the concentrations represent a health hazard. And where is the protective or preventive action? (Please rememberthat in my "devil's advocacy! I am talking mostly about perceptions. } When I alluded very briefly to the concern I have expressed here and said that I am troubled about the Bikinians' perception of the bio-assay program, Bob Conard said "would you have us stop it?" and 1 responded rather hastily "I don't know, Bob''. But I do know. I would not stop it, but I would be sure that it is what we say it is: an effort to confirm that our understanding of the environmental setting is good and that our recommendations are sound. If much of our visible effort to characterize and understand that environmental setting uses man as the indicator, I think we deserve and will receive criticism. Ina not too far-fetched analogy, can you imagine FDA leaving Red Dye #1 on the market for a period of years while studying a representative sample of the consuming population? And while we are talking about perceptions, did you knowthat American cigarettes are available throughout the Marshalls without the Surgeon General's warning? I cannot design the program that J think is urgently needed at Bikini, but my approach would be just the one that Jim Liverman suggested in a rhetorical question last Wednesday morning: ''Have we ever called together all of the people who are involved in this problem and tried to find out what we know, doing?" what we don't know, and what is worth (I take liberties with his words, but the sense is there).