4/30/82
Fis7 3

The following are comments on the, # points contained in the draft statement
presented at the 29 April plenary session by Roger Ray per TWX from PASO

received Washington 30 April 1982.
1.

sone

The United States conducts programs of radiological monitoring
and medical followup and treatment in the Marshall Islands.

The

purpose of the medical program is to “provide ... medical care and
treatment for any person, fresiding on Rongelap or Utirik Atolls

on March 1, 19543who has a continuing need for the care and
treatment of any radiation injury or iliness directly related to

the thermonuclear detonation (of March 1, 1954)."

The U.S. also

has agreed to provide for "medical monitoring" of those Bikinians
removed from Bikini Island in August 1978 (agreement signed August 16,
1978, among DOE, TTPI, and Bikini people).

The radiological moni-

toring program is to develop information in order to assess the
radiological status of the atolls.
2.

t)

The justification for the above mentioned programs isa humanitarian
effort to provide medical treatment for those persons on Rongelap
and Utirik having direct radvatiog anyary and illness by the U.S.
nuclear weapons testing program, so that the United States can
inform the High Commi ssioner?akteeTrust Territory of the Pacific

Islands sethontties with regard to medical followup (agreement signed
February 7, 1977, by Oscar DeBrum and Deputy Director, Division of
Biology and Medicine, Dr. William W. Burr, Jr.) and the radiological

status of the atolls.

The medical followup program, existant since

the 1950's, was codified into law in P.L. 95-134 with respect to the
March 1, 1954, residents of Rongelap and Utirik Atolls, as quoted above.

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