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DASA 2019-2

After that I joined the staff ac Brookhaven National Laboratory,
where Ehave been since, and have contirued to head up the annual
medical surveys of these Marshallese people; every year I take out
the medical team,

experts under the auspices of the AEC and Brook-

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haven, to examine these people,
Looking back over the years it seems to me we have come a long
way since the ©
., days of Bikini and have learned a great deal
more, The Marshallese experience has provided us with important
information about the effects of fallout on human beings.
So I think this conference may serve a rnost useful function in
culling such intormation and cxamining it in the light of interdisciplinary facets,
EISENBUD: I'm Merril Eisenbud. [envy you fellows and Miss
Root because you all know what you are. Youare biochemists or
experimentalpathologists, veterinarian pathologists, physicians.
I'm not sure what Lam. I started out in pre-medicine; 1 switched
to physics in my last year and then was persuaded that one couldn't
make a living in physics; so I switched again to electronics enginecring and took my first and my only degree in electrical engineering.
Il was interested in biology and tricd to find a degree program to
bridge the gaps. [ went from door to door; Il actualy attended school
as a registrant for a graduate degrce at three of the major colleges
inthe East, but couldn't break downthe tight discipli: ary barriers
that existed at that tirne. As I look back on it now, if was probably
a good thing.
I'm probably the last of the less educated professurs, There aren't
many of us left. [think of myself as a sort of a quasi- intellectual
mugwump. I like to straddle the fences between the disciplines and
I'm never sure which side of the fence my face is on or my rump is
on; and sometimes I'in not sure which fence I’m on! [Laughter]
Shortly after { got out of school [heard that there was a job open
in an insurance companyfor somebody with an interest in biology and
a knowledce of electronics, I couldn't understand why one would want
that kind of Lackground to sell insurance, So I applied for it, and
found that this insurance company, which turned out to be a very large
casualty insurance company, was setting up a small lcboratory to
look at occupat.cnal disease problems that existed in those days; [
was dispatched to some plants in Pennsylvania to werk out some methods

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