Page Seven Jonathan Weisgall January 21, 1982 ——— 22-Year Summary of Thyroid Findings, where Conard states: "The moan latent period for radiation-induced thyroid tumors may be as long as 30 years (page 9, emphasis added)." Following this point, a noted thyroid cancer researcher’ posited an even longer period for the induction of thyroid cancer. Ina 1978 paper titled “Etiology of Thyroid Cancer" (in Thyroid Cancer by Larry Greenfield, CRC Press, Florida, 1978), Louts Nompolteann (et al.) postulated that the moan latency period of thyroid cancer may be as long as 40 years (page 47, emphasis added). "3. Different effects of radiation depending on age." Response: I refer you again to the 1980 AAAS symposium, where J. E. Rall of the National Institutes of Health addresses this question in reference to the Marshallese. In discussing the thyroid uptake of the radioiodines in the exposed populations, Rall says: "Another peculiar and interesting property is that the uptake of iodine by the thyroid is generally about the same in children as it is in adults. That is, the fraction of iodine ingested which goes to the thyroid is about the same in a child as it is in anaduit. But a child of a year has a thyroid which weighs one gram, and an adult thyroid weighs about twenty grams, so if you put the same amount of material in one gram you get twenty times as much radiation. So children get substantially higher doses." (AAAS symposium, page 18, emphasis added). In addition to the above, it should be noted that if the Bikians are returned to their home atoll, children will be at a much higher risk for possible cancer induction because they-by definition--will have a longer residence period on the atoll in which to contract a possible malignancy. “4. Fish at Bikini. My notes state that you were told by a University of Hawaii graduate student who accompanied DOE missions to the Marshalls that there are between 800 and 1,000 different species of fish at Bikini. Are all of these species highly migratory or are there special problems at Bikini related to consumption of fish there? Are these species found only at Bikini? Where is the underlying data?" Response: During the June 1975 DOE survey to Utirik, I met a doctoral student from the University of Hawaii who was doing research with the Department of Oceanography. He told me that he was studying reef fish niche in Pacific atolls, and I remember my amazement when he told me there were "between 800 and 1,000 different species of reef fish at a typical atoll] in the Marshalls." This student--whose name I unfortunately cannot remember--told me that most of the reef fish (as their name implies) were sedentary and usually did not venture out into the open ocean. As opposed to the migratory fishes, Al7.