The Honorable Wallace O. Green Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Territorial & International Affairs August 8, 1980 Page Five attempt to make such determinations would, we are advised, far exceed the cost of providing treatment to every person eligible for the treatment program contemplated in Section 102 of Public Law 96-205. The Government of the Marshall Islands therefore agrees with the test that DOI appears to contemplate in relation to the people of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utirik. However, we find no statutory basis for discriminating between people of these atolls and the equally eligible program participants from the other exposed atolls with regard to the determinations which will be required prior to treatment of a particular injury, illness or condition. We find it medically and morally unacceptable to turn away any individual entitled to treatment because that person cannot establish a scientifically unestablishable connection between an injury, illness or condition and the nuclear weapons testing program. We applaud DOI's inclination not to require such a test for the people of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utirik but we insist that all other Marshallese from "exposed" atolls must be accorded that same consideration. The logic of our position is borne out by the facts of the nuclear weapons testing program. Prior to the weapons testing, the people of Bikini and Enewetak were removed from their islands. Except for the people of Bikini who were returned to Bikini in the early 1970's and later evacuated, the people cf Bikini and Enewetak were exposed to no higher levels of radiation than the other people on whose atolls they were residing. Conversely, people of other atolls who participated in the clean-up of contaminated atolls likely have been exposed to higher levels of radiation than the people of Bikini and Enewetak. As the Government of the Marshall Islands has previously indicated to the Government of the United States, we are quite concerned that the people involved in the Enewetak resettlement program may now receive new, medically hazardous levels of radiation exposure. Other than this group, however, there is no justifiable basis for concluding that injuries, illnesses or conditions of the people of Bikini or Enewetak are more likely to be radiation related, and therefore subject to any different test cf radiation relatedness, than the injuries, illnesses or conditions of peoples cf other atolls.