Bertell
April 15,
B1
1988
Minority Report:
Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., G.N.S.H.
The Preliminary Report, Rongelap
15, 1988, arrived in our Toronto
deadline for receipt of comments
1988, hence these comments are
will be augmented
the next month.
by
a
separate
It was distressing to me to
Reassessment Projec ' April
office 12 April 198.
in California was
April
necessarily incompifte and
report
to
Congress]
within
learn that blood tests and urine
analyses done under US Congressional funding over
30 years have not even been entered into comput
averages are available, no report has been given to
Rongelap
people.
The
question
of
urine
analysi
plutonium and other transuranics is serious enough
the
ionizing radiation even under the older more lax re
of the
1960’s.
Current international opinion wpuld be
stricter by a factor of 5 to 10 times.
This report [glossed
from the 250 analyzed,
and then using a median]
instead
of
an average
to extrapolate
to
the
people’s future body burden.
number
The Brookhaven National Laboratory blood test data [for 133
Rongelapese living on the contaminated and uncontaminated
Islands has now been entered into computer.
re are
thirteen blood parameters for 133 people for each
of 30
years (1957 —- 87).
It was impossible to scan thege 52000
Pieces of information without computerization.
I [fail to
understand why this data has never been properly pfocessed
and analyzed,
since this
was obviously the purpose
of
collecting it.
I hope to have a report on this readp within
the next week.
The basic question raised by the Rongelap people an
Congress was whether or not Rongelap Atoll is a
piace for the Rongelap people to live, to harvest
to bring up their children.
The questions have beeh
into a proliferation of numbers, many of which
scientifically
sound,
which
are
then
compared
legalistic standard for "average consumption of foo@
Standard Man".
The question of pregnant women and
was
not
addressed,
that
of
infants
was
ina
addressed, and the fact that the Rongelapese had
serious radiation exposure making them an already
people subjected to further contamination was not a
The IICPH will submit a separate report on these
It will compare the health of Rongelap children
brought up on different Atolls.
the US
uitable
food and
turned
fare not
j[with
a
by the
EFhildren
quately
revious
damaged