Brookhaven now has 26 years of medical research findings and experience in the field with the people of Rongelap and Utirik. It is regarded, therefore, as essential that any health care organization that develops a plan for future health care of the people of the “affected atolls" work closely with the Medical Department of the Brookhaven National Labortory on past and current medical activities, as well as recommendations for the future. It is estimated that costs to the Medical Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory to participate in this phase of the planning work will be in the range of $40,000 to $50,000. ‘The basic contract must include reimbursement funds for the Brookhaven National Laboratory for participation in the overall health plan contract. The Brookhaven medical program for the people of Rongelap and Utirik basically has been a medical research program, but this mandate has, of necessity, over the years been expanded to include care of non-radiation related diseases. This has been occasioned by the lack in the past of adequate primary medical care in the Marshall Islands. In 1954, 84 Rongelapese were exposed to fallout. Of these 84 originally exposed individuals, 50 are still living. There are also some 500 to 600 unexposed Rongelapese, made up of descendants of the exposed group plus the Marshallese who have Rongelapese blood or marriage affiliation. About 500 of the unexposed Rongelapese have been on occasion™as a "comparison" group to the exposed population. poet The original Utirik exposed group consisted of 158 individuals, of which 120 still are alive. Another 500 unexposed Utirikese, made up of descendants of the exposed group and Marshallese with Utirik blood or marriage affiliation, also fall into the Utirik category. Some 375 of this larger group have been studied as a "comparison" group to the exposed Utirikese, (b) Bikini Bikini Atoll was the site of 23 U.S. atmospheric tests. The 170 Bikinians resident there in 1946 were removed from the atoll in March 1946 prior to the start of the testing program. After several years of very unsatisfactory resettlement efforts in other parts of the Northern Marshalls, the Bikinians were resettled in March 1948 on the isolated island of Kili in the southern Marshalls. Thus, from March 1948 onward the main body of the people of Bikini have lived well outside the zone of the nuclear tests.