te ae NR lemecrehtn t e bao e te fies fs 14 Table 7 Mortality. 1954-1966. by Age as of 1954 Group Age: Rongelap {175 rads) Ailingnae (69 rads) Unexposed** <10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-30 51-60 61-70 71-80 > 80 0/19* 0/6 0/56 1/13 0/1 0/28 0/10 0/1 0/30 0/5 1/5 2/18 2/7 0/1 3/21 2/5 O/1 3/17 /i 3/3 2/7 2/3 0/1 1/1 Lyi *Mortality/numberin group. **Phis group was not examined until 1957. neck and face complicating diabetes, and a 68- Births complicating Asiatic influenza. A 91-year-old male (No. 862) died presumably of cardiovascular disease; he had been quite senile and bedridden for the past few years. During the past 12 years, 13 deaths have occurred in the exposed group. This represents 13.0 Twelve babies were born to exposed parents and 13 to unexposed parents during the period be-. tween March 1964 and March 1966. The birth rate per year is calculated from the number of births per women of childbearing age (15 to 45). There were 30 such women in the exposed group (including 3 unexposed women whose spouses are year-old woman (No. 894) died of pneumonia deaths per 1000 per annum (11.7 for the more ‘heavily exposed group and 18.3 for the smaller Ailingnae group) compared with 8.3 per 1000 for the Marshall Islands as a whole in 1960. In Table 7 mortalities for the exposed Rongelap and Ailingnae groups as well as the unexposed comparison population are presented accordingto decade of death. A x’? test for significance,* comparing groupsof exposed and unexposedpeople, showed thatthe mortality in the Ailingnae group alone wassignificantly greater than in the control group. The Rongelap exposed group combined with the Ailingnae exposed also showed significant difference compared with the unexposed. These results should be interpreted with caution since the numbers ofpeople involved are too small for a sensitive statistical test. None of the deaths in the exposed group can berelated directly to radia- tion exposure. The causes of death are similar to those in the unexposed population. The slightly greater mortality in the exposed Rongelap people may berelated in part, at least, to the larger per- centage of older people originally in this group. No cases of leukemia have appeared in the exposed population. Twoearlier deaths from cancer in exposed women and the recent development of a malignant thyroid nodule, to be described below, make it necessary to keep in mind the possibility of causal relationship with radiation exposure. *We are grateful to Mr. Keith Thompson of Brookhaven auonal Laboratoryfor carrving out the statistical analvses. 3008298 exposed males) and 32 in the unexposed group (see Table 8). From these data, there appears to be no difference in fertility between the two groups. All these babies appeared normal except for the two listed below, who were both offspring of unexposed parents. Congenital Anomalies. Two abnormal babies were noted during the 1965 survey. One was a hy- drocephalic (No. 1061) and the other a mongoloid (No. 1055). Sex Ratio. Table 9 lists the births by sex in re- lation to the exposureof the parents. There appears to be no radiation-induced sex ratio alteration. Miscarriages and Stillbirths. A total of 5 mis- carriages occurred overthe past 2-year period, all in unexposed women, one of whom (No. 959) had 3. As had been noted earlier, the exposed women had a somewhatgreaterincidence of miscarriges andstillbirths over the first 4 years post exposure (see Table 8). During 1954-58 the exposed women had 13 miscarriages of 32 total pregnancies (40.6% incidence), and the unexposed women had 8 miscarriages in 49 pregnancies (16.3% incidence) during the 4-year period 1956-60. A x* test for significance* showed that total miscarriages and stillbirths weresignificantly greater (at the 5% level) in the exposed women compared with unexposed ‘during the first 4 years, but there was no signifi- cant difference after this period. Since 1958 the exposed women have had 5 miscarriages in +8 pregnancies (10.4%) and the unexposed women 10 miscarriages in 62 pregnancies (16.1%).