Thyroid Abnormalities
Small growths (neoplasms) were felt in the thyroids of three young girls
at 9 and 10 years post exposure.
They were subsequently operated upon and
“their thyroids totally or partially removed.
Since that time in 1963,
operations for thyroid nodules have been performed on 20 people, 17 from the
Rongelap exposed,
one from Ailinginae,
Rongelap not exposed
one from Utirik,
to the original fallout.
and one person from
While it is generally
acknowledged that most of these nodules are nonmalignant (not cancerous),
operations were performed for two reasons,
(1)
and
the thyroids were no longer
(2)
for removal based on the fact
that
the
to check for possible malignancy,
functioning and.to anticipate the possibility of the growths turning malignant
at a later date.
In all, four of these nodules were found to have "malignant
lesions" according to a report from Dr. Conard.
(See appendix summarizing the
1972 survey).
As explained before,
it was known that the thyroids of
been exposed to doses near or above tolerance.
of exposed children,
the persons had
However, especially in the case
the differing size of the thyroid was not taken into
consideration and this resulted in little expectation of later nodule development.
Despite this fact, and probably in consideration of thyroid findings in exposed
Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the thyroid was watched carefully in all
of the surveys and various tests were conducted to try and locate ~-- short of
surgery -~- any possible abnormalities.
These tests,
however,
failed
to
indicate any future possible problems because of the presence of an unusually
high amount of certain chemicals (iodoprotein) in the Marshallese compared to
Americans.
Thus it was that the eleven and twelve year report commented chat:
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