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MATOMIGEENERGNACOMMISSIO
WAS IMM, tis
otiahd
No.
M-108
-. Tel. - 973-3335 or
" 973-3446
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sat70
aster.
Bina
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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SUSIE
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a
1969
CONARD NAMED TO MONITOR BIKINIANS
The Atomic Energy Commission has named Dr. Robert A.
Conard of its Brookhaven National Laboratory to conduct
- routine medical surveillance of the people of Bikini as
they return to their home atoll.
Bikini
atoll was
1946 and 1958.
the site
of
nuclear
23
tests
between
The Bikinians were moved from the atoll in
1946 before testing began.
In August 1968, President Johnson
announced that the Bikinians would be able to return to their
homeland and directed the Department of Defense, the Depart~
ment of the Interior and the Atomic Energy Commission to
cooperate in preparing for the return.
In naming Dr.
Conard,
the AEC is
following through ona
recommendation of its Ad Hoc Consultant Committee which,
in 1968, declared the atoll once more safe for human habita-~
tion.
The Committee's finding was based on a 1967 scientific
survey of the atoll which measured sources of potential internal and external radiation exposure.
The Committee
also recommended,
as
a
reasonable pre-
caution, that a routine surveillance of the Bikinians be
set up even before their retuxn and that continual checks
be made on their radiation exposure status after they are
back on the atoll.
‘Dr. Conard has 15 years of experience in working with
the people of the Marshall Islands which iiclude Bikini.
He was also a member of the Ad Hoc Conmittee.
posed to various levels of
306 us DOE ARCHIVES
S
ATOMIC
RG
ComussigREY
|
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He has explained his role as that of a monitor.
VEveryé
one has a certain amount of both natural and artificial
radioactivity present in his body and all of us are ex-—
external background radiation.
(more)
.
DOE ARCHIVES
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