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Office Memuandum » untrep sates GOVERNMENT
DATE: April 6, 1955
TO
: John Hall, Director, IA
FROM
? John Ce. Baghery MeDe, Director OW"
Division of Biology and Medicixne
SUBJECT:
sf
REY5,
CAUSE OF DEATH OF ATKICHT KU BOYAMA
isJCB
SYMBOL:
fhe essential facts with respect to this case are theses
le.
?
Mre Kuboyama was esposed to the fall-out of the March 1, 195)
Bikini detonation as were the others of the crew of the Fukuyru
Maru.
He had serious general body exposure combined with local
rediation burns of the sxin;
2e
He apparently was recovering from his radiation injury quite
satisfactorily, and at the time of his death no recognizable
internal radiation damage was reported and radio-chemical
examination of tissues and the skeleton showed extremely low
radioactivity; in fact, eoproaching levels which would be
considered negligible from a health standpoint;
3e
At a time when he was convalescing satisfactorily from his
radiation injury, he developed hepatitis which was presumably
of infectious type caused by a filterable viruse From this he
grew steadily worse with severe liver pathology and generalized
jaundice.
After a prolonged illness, he died from the effec
of hepatitis;
he
Such hepatitis is not in itself a direct consequence of radiation
injury and does not constitute a part of such injury. In this
case, however, the hepatitis is considered a complication of the
illness caused by the radiation exposure and ths related to it
in the serse that had the deceased not been involved in this
accicent, he would probeply be alive today. Discussions as to
the precise mode of acquisition of the hepatitis virus would
be fruitless. Such infections are common and occur in all
Gegrees of severity;
COMMISSI ON-
. US_DOE ARCHIVES
326 US ATOMIC ENERGY
In view of the above, I would not wish to contend that the
severity of the hepatitis was entirely unrelated to the previous
iliness caused by the radiation exposuree It is impossible to
make any firm statement concerning this relationship. It isa
reasonable line of argument that the prior injury and illness
may have contributed to the severity of the complicating hepatitis,
and this have contributed to his death. While it is most likely,
US 99F \IIAIVES
STATUS VERIFIED2//CL
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