REPOSITORY f0eees7@e COLLECTION ‘ BOX No. FOLDER - aS (Translation) S$oF 4+ #/ Dee. 3, /4473- 0 27, (976 a Asahi Shimbun AOs70% ptt AN 5 August 1976 High Morbidity Among Islanders Exposed to Bikini H-bomb Disorders of Thyroid and others Found AEC Medical Charts of 66 Persons Obtained by Gensuikin Kyushu Bloc Council “ The Kyushu Bloc Council of Gensuikin (Council Against A~ and Hbombs, business manager: Kazuyoshi Yamakawa, c/o Fukuoka Prefectural Council of Labor Unions) which has invited and treated 'licronesian survivors exposed to fall-out from the US H-bomb test at Bikini Atoll 22 years ago, which also caused the tragedy of the No, 5 Fukuryu-maru {Lucky Dragon), has obtained the unreleased ALC (U.S. Atomic Energy Commission) medical charts of 66 proximally exposed residents of Rongelap Island. They contain detailed information on the circumstances at the time of exposure and medical data including the afterveffects that developed during the 19 years until 1973 and the course ‘of treatment such as are not available for A-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specialists who have seen the charts point out that “incidence of thyroid abnormalities is surprisingly high and careful surveillance must be continued against leukemia and cancer." The Bloc Council says it wishes to "expand its treatment program in Javan and use the charts as data for appealing the ever increasing dread of the nuclear bomb." According to the AEC renort, the H-bomb test was conducted on 1 March 1954 and a total of 267 persons were exposed including 28 American scientists. The AEC is sending a medical survey team to the islands and issuing a summary report on the survey findings every year. However, because the United States is refusing foreign survey, teams: entry into Micronesia, a trust territory of the US, hardly any firsthand medical data on the individual patients have been internationally availahle. The Gensuikin dispatched an investigation team in 1971, but the team was not allowed to enter the territory. Therefore the Kyushu Bloc Council in May this year invited to Nagasaki for the first time two residents of Rongelap Island and opened a way for the Bikini survivors to receive treatment in Japan. In the course of this, copies of the medical charts of 66 of the 86 exposed islanders (including 4 exposed in utero) were obtained. The Council had almost the entire picture analyzed by specialists by the 3rd.. [Oli b49: