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We departed Majuro on 26 February and arrived that evening at Eniwetok,.
Qn arrival we found that the LST had arrived that morning and onloading
of the ship with our medical equipment was proceeding satisfactorily.
The assistance of the ABC group and Holmes and Narver in getting the
steel room, the air conditioned wooden room for housing electronics
equipment, shower facilities and medical equipment on board was invaluable.
We departed Eniwetok on the LST Saturday, 28 February, and arrived at
Rongelap on 2 March. I went ashore on an LCVP prior to beaching of the
LST and met the new magistrate, Billimon, as well as the former magis~
trate, John, and many others. I explained to them the object of our
visit and proposed that we hold a clinic for anyone needing treatment
as soon as we could set up our facilities ashore. They seemed agreeable to our program at the time. Mr. Neal Morriss, agriculturalist
representing the Trust Territory, was also on hand. Following beaching
ot the LST, otfloading of the ship commenced in order to set up our
medical facilities ashore. The unloading, however, was interrupted
by request of Mr. Morriss in that the people were not certain that
they wished to be examined and wished to have a council meeting.
Therefore, offloading procedures were halted and a council meeting was
held.
The meeting lasted 3 1/2 hours and I wes questioned by the people on
many subjects relating to their health and need for examination.
Their
principal point was that since we had said that they were healthy they
did not see why they should have to be re-examined. I explained to
them that though they were recovered from their acute effects of
raciation we wanted to be certain that they remained healthy; that
our knoywledge of late effects of radiation in hunan beings was quite
limited and that continued examinations were imperative in order that
if further effects of their radiation exposure should occur we would
be able to detect them and treat them. I explained to them the impor-
tance of the blood examination in establishing their state of health
(the primary objection to the examination seemed to center around the
blood sampling). They seemed to try to blame everything on the radiation accident. They claimed they have been feeling weak and not up to
standard since their return to Rongelap. There have been a number of
cases of fish poisoning which they believe were radiation effects.
They were assured that the symptoms described were not due to radiation but were due to fish poisoning. They then claimed that such
poisoning had not been prevalent prior to the 1954 accident.
I was
glad that I had Dr. Held with me to reassure them that fish poisoning
was nothing new in the islands and was:not related to the radiation
accident. A rather searching question was asked in regard to coconut
crabs.
‘Why do we say they cannot eat the coconut crabs and yet allow
then to feed them to the pigs and then eat the pigs?
As you can imagine,
the answer to this question was not easy to explain, and I had to go
over this again and asain with them. I don’t know whether many of then
were able to grasp the idea that the Strontium? though present throughout
the meat of the crab was deposited only in the bones of the pigs and
therefore, since they did not eat the bones, they would not get the
Strontium? into their bodies. They wanted to know from Dr. Held
why it was necessary for nim to study the soil, plants, and marine
US DGE aRcHty
FS
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