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No.
Tel.
M-108
973-3335 or
973-3446
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PEb
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
O
ARB?
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 the site of 23 nuclear tests between
1946 and 1958,
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 Department of the Interior and the Atomic Energy Commission to
cooperate in preparing for the return.
in naming Dr. Conard, the AEC is following through on a
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 in-
ternal and external radiation exposure.
The Committee also recom
mendea. 26 2 Feasonabie Pre
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be made on their radiation
exposure status after they are
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back on the atoll.
~
,
Dr. Conard has 15 years of experience in working with
the people of the Marshall Islands which include Bikini.
“He was
alse 2 momber of
the Ad Hoc Committee.
He has explained his role as that of a monitor.
“Every-
one has a certain amount of both natural and artificial
radioactivity present in his body and all of us are ex-
posed to various levels of external background radiation.
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