OF NE.v JERSEY EO JUL 25 «PH ot: 02 LIVINGSTON COLLEGE > GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ANTHROPOLOGY NEW BRUNSWICK e NEW JERSEY 08903+ 201/932-2598 - July 18, 1980 = Mr, Wallace 0, Green Deputy Under Secretary of International enc Territorial Affairs Department of the Interior Office of the Secretary Washineton, DC. 20240 Dear Mr. Green: I have been edvised by Mr. Clifford Sloan, Lezislsative Assistant for Congressmen Sidney Yates, to forward elong the erclosed information concerning the proposed resettlement of Enjebi Island in the Marshall Islands. I hope this information will vrove to be of some use in making your decision about the resettlement, and I mst admit that I do not envy your position in having to make a determination about this most Complex and difficult issue. My involvement with the Marshall Islanders began in 1975 when I was stationed on Utirik Atoll as a Peace Coros volunteer. Despite my “official” Peace Corps task of helping to initiate an agricultural co- operative, as well as to teach school on the atoll, I soon realized that the Utirik people had more immediate concerms which stemmed from their irradiation during the BRAVO shot of March 1, 1954. Specifically, the Utirik Council articulated to mé thelr complaints about the Brookhaven National Laboratory medical program in the Marshells, end the Utirik people were becoming increasingly suspicious about the nature of that program. For example, the Utirik people could not understand the logic of a program which spent millions of dollars annually, and which neglected to treat numerous illnesses in their population, notwithstanding that these illnesses were admittedly unrelated to radiation and its effects. A case in point concems the 30% incidence rate of adulteonset type diabetes as diagnosed in the Utirik group by Brookhaven doctors several years previously: the Brookhaven doctors carefully explained that because diabetes was unrelated to radiation, it was “not their responsibility," and consequently the diabetes was left untreated. Moreover, many other cases of illnesses which were allegedly unrelated to radiation--including primary and secondary health care--went untreated. As a result, the Utirik people began to question the Brookhaven prograz for their atoll, and they began wondering whether the program was really intended for their benefit, or perhaps for the benefit of medical science and scientific inquiry.