BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL: LABORATORY
‘
HOL7O7
ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES, INC. UPTON, LiL, N.Y. 11973
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
TELEPHONE: (516) 345- 3577
November 21, 1975
Dr. James L. Liverman
Assistant Administrator for Environmental
Safety .
Energy Research and Development Administration
Washington, D.C. 20545
+
Dear Jim:
The purpose of this letter is to acquaint you with a change in our
conclusion regarding radiation etiology of thyroid cancer in the Marshall-
ese population of Utirik who had been exposed to low doses of radiation
from’ fallout.
In 1969 one of the Utirik women had a ‘thyroid tumor re-
moved which was malignant.
It was believed that this one case could
well have been a natural occurrence and since no nodules had been detect-
ed in the Utirik children and only a normal incidence of benign nodules
had developed in the adults I had advised the Congress of Micronesia, in
response te questions submitted, that it was unlikely that any of the
thyroid abnormalities noted in the Utirik population (158 people) were
related to radiation exposurc.
As you know the subject of additionai
compensation for the exposed Marshallese is about to come up before our
Congress.
The Department of Interior is handling this matter.
Of course
the Congress of Micronesia is pushing for passage of such a bill and the
questions asked me concerning various aspects of our medical findings
were related to this.
,
Last month another thyroid tumor was removed from a 25 year old
female exposed on Utirik at 4 years of age, the first tumor to be detect-
ed jn the younger ave group of that population.
The diagnosis on this
tumor has been controversial among nine outstanding thyroid pathologists ~.,
three favaring a diagnosis of cancer, two atypical bonign adenoma and
four aveundeci¢c.a but willing to call it a premalignant lesion ov cancerin-situ.
We have decided to call it cancer-in-situ and for statistical
purposes classify it as cancer.
In order to obtain advice on chances that these two cancers in the
Utirik group were related to their radiation cxposure I visited Drs.
Brian MacMahon and George B. Hutchison, at the School of Public Health
at Harvard Medical School for review of the Marshallese data.
Both of
these men are experts in population statistics.
They concluded that
the "occurrence of 2 cases by chance is extremely unlikely".
of their conclusions is attached.
901 | My
WWEORMATION OPLCRATON (PAG) 945-2923
<A suamary