PRIVACY ACT MATERIAL REM OVED April 9, > 1975 e Rongelap Island, Dr. Robert Conard Brookhaven National Micronesia. Laboratory Upton, Long Island, New York HOLPPG 11790 Dear Dr. Conard, I'm sorry | was not at home when you visited my island. Instead, | have spent the past few months travelling to Japan and Fiji learning about treatment of atomic bomb victims and about attempts to end the nuclear threat in the Pacific. Since leaving Rongelap on the peace ship Fri, | have learned a great deal and am writing to you to clarify some of my feelings regarding your continued use of us as research subjects. Ol thriz C6f/9 78 Dr. Cevato for your government's bomb research effort. BOX No. FOLOER be 430 ~- PHE a Fron *2 at S228 C@LLECTION REPOSITOAY Dod HVPE (fy -~ { realize now that your entire career is based on our illness. We are far more valuable to you than you are to us. You have never really cared about us as people -- only as a group of guinea pigs people on Rongelap, facts and figures. For me and for the other it is life which matters most. For you it is There is no question about your technical compe- tence, but we often wonder about your humanity. and your technological machinery. We want to be free. We don't need you We want our life and our health. In all the years you've come to our island, you've never treated us as people. You've never sat down among us and really helped us honestly with our problems. You have told people that the 'worst is over'', then died. JI don't know yet how many new cases you'll find during your current trip, but | am very worried that we will suffer again and again. 1'1] never forget how you told a newspaper reporter that it was our fault that _ died because we wouldn't let you examine us in early 1972. You seem to forget that you work for who murdered As a result of my trip, to know about. it is your country and the people I've made some decisions that I want you The main decision is that we do not want to see you again. We want medical care from doctors who care about us, not about collecting information for the U.S. government's war makers. We want a doctor to Jive on our island permanently. We don't need medical care only when it is convenient for you to visit. We want to be able to see a doctor when we want to. America has been trying to Amertcanize us by flying flags and using cast-off textbooks. It's about time America gave us the kind of medical care it provides its own citizens. We've never really trusted you. So we're going to invite doctors from hospitals In Hiroshima to examine us In a caring way. 503301 PRIVACY ACT MATERIAL REMOVED yr i.