aa were below the acceptable tolerances. - 98 The plutonium measurement was ap- proximately 1/100th the permissible amount. Earth samples were taken from all the involved islands for decay studies by NRDL on the uptake of fission products by plants and animals left on the island after the evacuation. Since the Trust Territories Government planned to return the natives to their own islands, they would continue to study the problem of plant and animal uptake. Surveys of the fish in the atoll were made by AEC contractor personnel to deter— mine their future edibility. In summary, it did not appear that the operational dosages estimated by the Nuclear Energy Power for Aircraft Medical Committee were in’ error as far as acute effects were concerned. The 40 and 75 r people suffered a modest reduction in white count but no other signs or symptoms (disregarding the local skin lesions). This group was.capable of carry- ing on work without any apparent loss of efficiency. The 125 r group had very mild general symptoms occurring between fourteen and eighteen hours after the exposure started and lasting forty-eight hours or more. Any loss of efficiency by this group was short-lived and not observed to any marked degree. One medical observer on the evacuation destroyer was unable to detect any trace of symptomatology during the evacuation. Observations indicated that the external hazard continued to overshadow the internal hazard for short-time exposures to fission products. However, continued exposures of these groups to gross ingestion of the fall-out material would have been undesirable. Radfoaudigraphs of chick- en bones from animals left on the islands revealed a marked uptake of radioactive material on x-ray film after a three-hour exposure. APWLIHO , i. Joe