LS DIVLES[ORME[TUES JboDb FF Utivik received low radiation so a detailed follow up was not necessary,” said Dr. Konrad P. Kotrady, a former Brookhaven resident physician in the Marshalls who devcloped a close relaUonship wilh the island people beforp relurning to his teaching posilion at phe University of Ulah. } La ‘Now the facts of the thyroid cancen at Utirik have strongly shown that the theary was wrong,” Kotrady have expressions of resentment and hostility, including a suit by the residents of Bikini to force the US. government to conduct a thorough monitoring of radiation. The atolls affected by the Bikini test program string eastward from Bikini. Rongelap is about 100 miles from the test site and Ulirik is 280 miles, . Until recently, the focus of the medical program had been mainly on -"The people ask if this thyroid idents received substantially higher about the threat from radiation, not populated. BNE PEEStee, thick that il resembled snow. ERDA officials said the program has recently been revised and more effort is being made to meet the needs of the Utirik people. “Let's face it, the. US. goofed,” said Dr. Bill Burr, depu- human penulation ever exposed to ty director of ERD’s Division of Bi- acute radiation from fallout,” Dr. Coomedical and Environmental Re- nard said in a 20-year report on the Brookhaven program. Search. The islander’s deep dissatisfaction In 1905, Congress voted to compenwill be aimed at Congress next week sate the Rongelapese $10,5(0 each, when the Senate Committee on Ener- but radiation-related thyroid disease gy and Natura! Resources takes tesli- had only begun to break out on that “Time and agaln the committee mony-on a bill to compensate the in- found that the people did not under- habitants of Rongelep and Ulirik. stand anything about their exposure, tha amount of exposure, the possible ed malignancy” with $25,000. : 7 . aay x ots Fars af ee a te AD ee date cate sy a a 5 . ut QTAlS ai honeh 1 It would provide $25,000 to the the inconvenience of medical’ heirs of persons dying of radiationexaminations. This figure was arrived related causes and an additional $1,- at before the thyroid disease prob000 to each resident of Utirik at the lems became anparent time the fallout accident occurred. Ronald G. Bakal, a Los Angeles atThe issue of compensation is diffi- torney representing 70 Ulirik people, cult because of a lack of precedent. referred to the “In contrast to other groups exposed the amounts previous payment and proposed in the bills as to radiation, the Marshallese are “gratuitous compensation.” unique in that they comprise the only problem has suddenly occurred, is it levels of radiation from fallout so only at Rongelap and Utirik, but also ambng residents of Bikini, the site of the tests, which is gradually being re- pay for the loss of fish due to radia- | on. / the site of !mportant missile and na-_ So far, the Utirikese have received | val installations. $18,000, or $114 per person, to pay for Two bills before the U.S. Congress, both of which were adapted from a proposal by Secretary of Interior . A series of mistakes Cecil D. Andrus, would compensate compounded the isfandeach Micronesian who developed thyroid disease or a “radiation-relat- ers” radiation exposure, wrole in a slinging crilique of the the island of Rongelap, whose 68 resUtirik medical program. not. possible that the experts have bedn wrong for so many years and that more problems will occur in the a Kotrady said. gtudy by a special committee of tha Micronesian Legislature found ~~ widespread anxiety and misunderslanding among the Marshallese The islands are of key strategic importance to the United States and are | “In California, the minimum would be $100,000 to compensate jf a person were Involved in a wrongful’ death and it could go as high as $400,000 to $500,000, maybe more, depending on loss of income amd other factors,” Ba- kal said. - He has demanded that ihe 40 per- isiand and the full health effects were sons in the exposed group still living not known. Since then, a 19-year-old boy who on the atoll receive $1 million each and that the atoll as a whole be com‘Because of a recent U.S. Supreme was a l-year-old at the time:of the pensated $60 million “for psychologi- bomb test has died of leukemia, which effects on themselves and their chil- Court ruling involving a damage Brookhaven specialists said was al- cal, emotional and environmental dren and on their environment,” the claim on the island of Kwajalein, Mi- most cerlainly radiation-related. A damages.” Bakal said community funds should committee report said. cronesians cannot sue for damages in case of fatal stomach cancer also has be provided to cover environmental is The various studics done on the federal court, although Micronesia been reported, in addition to an inStudies and assistance, as well as hosproblem show a monumental culture a Trust Territory of the United States crease in thyroid cases, clash between the health specialists and its cilizens share many of this Japan was paid $2 million by the pitals, a pharmacy and medical training for the islanders, from the United States and the islan- country’s constitutional safeguards. * US. government in 1955 to compenhabits food-gathering whose ders, In effect, their only recourse is ta sate for the damages to 29 Japanese He also.has questioned the quality and way of life have changed liltle appeal to Congress and the Depart- fishermen on the Lucky Dragon fish- of the medical treatment provided the over the centuries. ment of Interior, which administers Ing vessel who were Subiect to fallout + Marshallese, saying “it can only be xiescribed as experimentation.” As the confusion has grown, So, too, the Trust Territories. from the same bomb lest. as well a3¢¢ stu] These charges are bilterly denied YUP,