80 DASA 2019-2 consumption of the fish. This nicety was lost on, or at least ignored by, the writer of the headline. The effect of this article and others like it was far-reaching, however. Shortly after the appearance of the one in question, ABCC was visited by a woman and her daughter who had been in Osaka when the fish were sold. The mother and he: child insisted that something had to be done for them. They were really quite concerned, and were certain they had eaten the contami- nated fish. We didn't have the vaguest notion, of course, what should or could be done if we assumed that they had, in fact, eaten the fish. If l remember correctly, to easetheir apprehensions stool specimens were obtained and examined, and this had the desired palliative effect. At least they left with the belief that someone was interested in their health. This is but one small indication of the near hysteria engendered largely by the newspapers, I'm sure that Bob Miller can add to these experiences, MILLER: I was too far from the scene and too inexperienced in Japan at that time to be much of a witness as to what was occurring, But | would like to point out that four years ‘ater, in 1958, Dr. Schull and I, among others, returned to Japan to make a study (Reference 7) of children who were in grammar school then and whose parents had either not been exposed to the bomb or were too far from it to have received significant exposure, In Hiroshima, of 2,200 children who were invited to come tor examination, 97-1/2 percent did come. In Nagasaki, of 4,500 invited to come, 99 percent did so. So, four or five years after the Bikini incident in 1954, there was not much of a hard core of resistance as a result of that experience, I would like to bring our attention back to Dr. Langham's question just before this discussion began: Why is radiation so evil? I think, since he asked the question, we have heard some of the answers to it. I wonder how he feels about it now, after hearing that the newspapers inflamed the public, the Japanese physicians were jockeying for position, and the governments, both U.S. and Japanese, were unprepared to handle the circumstances and made a mess of it? et pm me ME LANGHAM: Well, [ think this is the evil. No one respects radiation any more than I, but I don't think radiation is an insurmountable thing at all. It may be that the psychological impact created by the press and everyone else concerned is incompatible, This is exactly what I'm trying to get at. All of these affairs get blown into something that is far beyond their real importance, Now, why? Maybe some of the answers are coming now, but I don't think this means that radiation is something we can't live with at all.