Psychological Aspects

One aspect of the incident which is the subject of this report
which has not been widely discussed or been made public concerns the
psychological effects of exposure to radiation from nuclear weapons.
Dx, William Peck, now Director of the Medex program to the Trust Territory Department of Health Services, was responsible for bringing this
area of concern to the Committee’s attention.

Although his original

intention in sneaking of the psychological aspects was in connection
with compensation, however it also later developed to be a valid and
interesting line of inquiry for the Committee during its visits to
Japan and the Marshall Islands District.
In some respects, comparision can be made between the Japanese
exposed to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs in 1945 and the Ronge=
lapese and Utirikese exposed to fallout in 1954,

While figures dif-

fer, it is generally acknowledged that more than 100, 000 peonle died
in Japan as a result of the two bombs:

many of them were literally

vaporized by the heat of the blast near the hypocenter; others died
from heat and radiation burns, houses collapsing upon them, flying
debris, drowning, suffocation, or being burned in the fires that
spread throughout the cities later.

Some simply died from lack of

adequate medical care, food, water or shelter.

The people in the

Marshalls were not exposed to such trauma, but rather to a snowlike
or mistlike gentle fall of radioactive particles.

Despite these

I

differences, however, there is one aspect common to all these cases:
the radioactivity produced by the bombs and its effects upon those
Today, in Japan, people are still dying from effects of

.
—

exposed,

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