UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20545 OR 7E9 October ll, 1965 Ky) MEMORANDUM FOR CHAIRMAN SEABORG _} 10ff 3/<J COMMISSIONER PALFREY COMMISSIONER RAMEY COMMISSIONER TAPE THROUGH GENERAL nanacERFA SUBJECT: J RECENT INFORMATION ON THYROID DISEASE IN THE MARSHALLESE ISLANDS Dr. Robert A. Conard of the Medical Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, has just returned from an interim visit to the Marshall Islands to check on possible further development of thyroid abnormalities in the Rongelapese accidentally exposed to fallout on March 1, 1954. He was accompanied by Dr. J. E. Rall, a consultant thyroid specialist of the National Institutes of Health. It will be recalled that, as of mid-summer, benign nodules had been found in a total of five adolescents exposed at ages of two to seven years; one adult female, forty-one years old, had been found to have a malignant nodule, All successfully underwent surgery for removal of the abnormal tissue. Attached is a copy of our July 12, 1965, memorandum to you describing the successful surgery for two children During the current August examination, nodules were found in three additional adolescents and two adults. The contours of the thyroids of two more adolescents, two young adults, and one man approaching middie age were sufficiently different from normal to cause Drs, Conard and Rall to describe them as questionable, Lo and the adult. To summarize, there are now eleven of eighty-two Marshallese with anortesant af Seeneeedefinite abnormalities of their thyroid tissues and five more are oa RG . . considered questionably so. STATUS pay _ US DOE ARCHIVE 326 US ATOMIC ENERGY ByZ COMMISSION oo. Collection _ a4 eo “olderDuc o¢ - ~STHEN DISEASES” les 4 esb/Ef NON-CCRP O10 CAHRCER Of & Exper ED CRoups |