The Honorable Wallace O. Green Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary Territorial & International Affairs August 8, 1980 Page Seven The Government of the Marshall Islands did not present to the United States a "Survey." We presented preliminary information, informally gathered indicating the existence of serious medical problems. We made no assertion regarding the "normal incidence" of such medical problems in the Marshall Islands, in fact, as explained above we do not believe that a determination of normalcy can be made for our population. On Several previous occasions the Government of the Marshall Islands has objected to your characterization of these problems as "Likiep" problems. We received our first data from Likiep, but have advised you repeatedly that our efforts to determine the medical needs and to obtain care have focused on several atolls close to the areas of the highest levels of fallout concentration in the Bravo shot fallout pattern. Finally, the Government of the Marshall Islands has not requested that our people be "studied;" we have requested assistance in identifying medical problems and, more importantly, have requested that medical doctors be sent immediately to provide desperately needed medical care. We know that many people are seriously ill and suspect that many other people are Similarly in need of care. We are requesting treatment, not scientific analysis and we anxiously await the doctors which you promised to send us over a year ago. During the meeting in your offices on July 23, 1980 we presented to Department of Interior and Department of Energy officials a letter from our medical consultant, Dr. Robert G. Loeffler, suggesting several modifications to the proposed medical survey of Likiep atoll. I have attached a copy of that letter for your personal attention. (Attachment 1) We would appreciate a response to these suggestions at the earliest possible date. The people of the Marshall Islands quickly are losing any hope which they may still retain that the United States is prepared to treat the serious medical problems left by the nuclear weapons testing program on atolls other than Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utirik. Frustrated with the slowness of the response of the United States to the information presented by the Government of the Marshall Islands in May of 1979, the people of Wotje Atoll commissioned Dr. Reuben Merliss to visit their atoll to report first hand on the scope of the medical problems in Wotje and their possible relation to radiation exposure.