entitled "Marine Safety", please see Enclosure IV) and his pleasant personality and able seamanship greatly assisted the BNL team.
Mr.
Munk was of
great assistance in the survey as Liaison between BNL ans U.S.
Because of the unique logistic requirements of this survey,
to pick up, at each island,
Oceanography.
e.g., we needed
all patients who might require surgery,
the
ship on the final leg from Utirik to Wotje and finally to Kwajalein was
overloaded.
(It had been my opinion since the original contract negotiation
that this ship was marginal for support of the medical program.)
Even with
the partial correction of the prior deficiencies, the habitability of the
spaces assigned to the medical survey party was unsatisfactory.
We had a
number of small epidemics of upper respiratory infections and viral gastro-
intestinal illnesses during the trip due primarily to crowding in the
berthing areas
(please see Enclosure V).
With the inevitable expansion of
each succeeding medical survey this problem will quickly become the limiting
factor.
I agreed to an interim renewal of the ship's contract for this year
while some more suitable means of support was obtained with the understanding
that the present ship will compromise the medical mission during the remainder
of calendar 1979 and early 1980.
The reasons for, and characteristics of,
the replacement support system should be discussed at the Department of
Energy as soon as possible.
Upon returning to Kwajalein we were met by Dr. Brown Dobyns, Professor
of Surgery, Case Western Reserve University who is one of the nation's
leading thyroid surgeons to review all of the possible surgical cases along
with Drs. Conard and Robbins.
the United States
Fourteen patients were selected to return to
for workup at Brookhaven National Laboratory and thyroid
surgery at Cleveland during June and July of 1979.
In addition to the