By May 1978, a high percentage of the Marshallese body levels were above the maximum permissible dose and the Bikinians were evacuated again. left) People walking on the concrete dome covering an atomic bomb crater on Runit Island, Enewetak atoll. (below) Nuclear clean up on Runit Istand. (left) U.S. Army personnel in full protective gear. (right) Armypersonnel mixing plutonium-contnminated soil with cement to form the massive concrete dome. Robert Conard of Brookhaven National Laboratory—which has coordinated the Marshall Islands medical program since 1954— estimated the health risks of the ex- posure: x tant, a . ‘*Assuming that they [143 people] had all been there since 1970 and received the average estimated integrated total duse of 2.6 rems for the penod, based on known radiation- renee induced risk data. one would expect fe eaeeTEY pre OTE mos only about 0.005 total cases of leukemia to develop in that popula- ms si tion as a result of their radiation ex- - 7 + mmm ca -~ 7? . 3 | ‘‘The people fail to understand howscientists can say they do not knowall the possible late effects the radiation can cause. . . and then tell the people a medical program ts un> . \ -Y “AT fy XN q : aN + me ie sy cluded both ground and aenal surveys of the islands, according to the Department of Energy. [t was not done at Bikini, however. In fact, it wasn't until the Bikinians filed a fed- eral law suit in 1975. asking for a thorough radiological survey of Bikinit and the northern Marshall Is- lands, that the government agreed to do it. But because of three years of bureaucratic infighting among the Departments of Energy, State and Interior, the radiological survey was But Dr. Konrad Kotrady. a former } ws cal survey of Enewetak.”’ whichin- measuring radiation at the outset of the Bikini resettlement; it chose to employ them only at Enewetak. U.S. policies with respect to pro- with this philosophy: ' conducted an “‘exhaustive radiologi- not conducted until after the evacuation of Bikini in late 1978. Brookhaven resident physician in the Marshalls. strongly disagreed 4 radiation measurement techniques then were not as sophisticated as those available today: that the surveys of Bikini were far less extensive than those subsequently carried out at Enewetak atoll.'* The facts, however, suggest otherwise. In 1972-1973, the United States posure. The need for further medical examinations ts not indicated based on possible radiation effects associated with such low doses." "4 > ae el Conard and representatives of other U.S. government agencies, in apologizing for the complications which occurred. frequently say that necessary. If in 40 or SO years medical prob- lems do occur as a result of the exposure, it would be better if a well designed medical program was already in progress to detect the problems. 7" December 1980 The United States did have sophisticated techniques for tecting the health of the Marshallese have been totally inconsistent. For example. in 1946, prior to the first nuclear test series. Operation Crossroads, the people from islands within a radius of 300 miles of Bikim— including the Rongelap—were evacuated as a safety precaution.!? The yield of these bombs was ap- proximately 20 kilotens. But in 1954, there was no official warning of the Bravo test, much less an evacuation of the populations. Yet Bravo was the Jurgest U.S. hydrogen homb tested—more than [5 megatons. More than 200 Marshallese on The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 27