as part of the Brookhaven medical examination program.

A portable whole-body

counter with a standard chair geometry in a shielded steel room was employed
(Coh63).

Whole-body counts were obtained in the Rongelap and Utirik populations

in 1959 (Co60), 1961 (Co62), 1965 (Co67), 1974 (Co75) and 1977 (Co80a).

The

counting geometry was converted to a scanning type shadow-shield geometry

starting in 1965 (Co67).

Urine samples were also collected in these surveys and

in additional medical surveys conducted in intervening years.

The samples were

analyzed for their radiochemical content by both USNRDL and the NYO-AEC
Laboratories.
From 1978 to the present time, whole-body counting measurements were
performed with the bed type shadow shield whole-body counter (Co67).

a standard chair geometry was once again used.

In 1980,

All three counting systems were

interealibrated and also calibrated against the large Brookhaven National Laboratory 54-detector whole-body counting facility to ensure consistency of the
whole-body counting data over the past 28 years.
A summary of the sequence of events affecting the whole-body and urine activity measurements on the Rongelap and Utirik people is given in Fig. 1.

The

detonation of BRAVO in 1954 was followed by the evacuation of Rongelap Atoll at
2.2 days post detonation and then Utirik Atoll at 3.5 days post detonation.
After a three month wait, the Utirik people returned in June 1954 and after
three years Rongelap Atoll was rehabilitated and occupied in June 1957.

Shortly

after the Rongelap people's return, the first "in situ’ whole-body counting survey was performed in 1958.

The HARDTACK series of nuclear tests in 1958 were

the final above-ground tests to be performed by the United States in the
Marshall Islands.

World-wide atmospheric testing of nuclear devices at other

locations continued and peaked during the early 1960's.

During the period 1958

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