deaths from these ulcers, according to the memory of the
individuals that I spoke to.
Startingly, I wes tcld
repeatedly of deaths on Utric in the month following the
bomb blasts.
Several people from Utric told me of three
in the month following the first blast, at least two of
them being in children and one, to my memory, in a young
woman.
One
suspects that this immediate type of response
is due to direct radiation connected directly with the
fallout, and probably not food-chain,
certainty 1s not available.
although absolute
.
All of the people have consistently told me that the
damage to the vegetation and the foods that they eat, -extremely limited to start with -- has been Géevastating.
The Marshallese
eat a
limited diet consisting
of
fish,
breadfruit, coconut, and arrowroot.
The most sensitive
to radiation of the plants proved to be arrowroot.
But
this was a highly important foodstuff on these small
islanes.
As I understood from the Marshallese that I
spoke to, before the blast the arrowroot:- grew as a tuber
ortrhizome on the root of a bushy type of plant.
A healthy
arrowroot plant would have six or so tubers, and would
yield a good deal of nutritious food.
After the blast,
the arrowroot plants themselves started to diminish and
the number of tubers on the roots decreased until the
point came at which the arrowroot has almost been lost on
some of the islands and no longer serves as a steple in
the diet.
he Marshallese describe to me the tubers
shrinking to two to three on a bush, and then to small
tubers, and then to the plant just not growing
growing in a deformed manner.
Similar effects
in the coconut trees.
The tops of the coconut
turned red or brown after the blasts, and many
trees have not borne as well since.
at all, or
occurred
trees
coconut
The breadfruit trees
have borne smaller fruit and often deformed fruit.
of the trees themselves have become deformed.
Some
I am also struck by the hich incidence of hyvertenSion in the people of the Marshell Islands.
The incidence
of hypertension in the average white American male goes
up to about
five per cent depending on age.
The
frequency
of hypertension however among the Marshallese far outnumbers
that,
and judging from the hospital
records that
I
looked