TITLE
Human Health Effects from Energy
Generation:
BUDGET AND REPORTING CODE
Medical Studies of the
People of the Marshall Isiands
Accidentally Exposed to Fallout
CONTRACTOR NAME
CODE
Associated Universities, Inc.
20e.
DATE PREPARED
HA-02-01-01
BNL
WP NUMBER
03/31/80
TASK NO.
REV. NO.
0
Approach cont.
Fiscal control will be exercised in the form of monthly comparison of actual
costs incurred against corresponding line items in the budget.
Substantive
progress shall be monitored through a periodic review of accomplishments conducted
by the Contract Task Manager.
20£.
Technical Progress.
Technical Progress in BY-3 (FY 1979).
In response to requests by the people of Rongelap and Utirik, the Department
of Energy agreed in February 1977 to assist the Trust Territory in an expanded
health care program for the people living at Rongelap and Utirik Atolls.
Accordingly,
during the January - February 1979 survey (25 years post-exposure),
all Marshallese living on these atolls, who wished it, were given complete medical
and laboratory examinations similar to those in the exposed group.
Greater
physician-patient relationship was attained by lengthening the stay on the
islands, which necessitated doubling the size of the medical team by releasing one
team after 2 1/2 weeks to return to the United States and utilizing a second team
for the second half of the survey.
A 2nd survey covering 4 weeks in May and June
concentrated primarily on pediatric evaluations and sick call plus a reevaluation
of those thyroid nodules found on previous surveys.
On the final three days of
that survey Dr. Brown Dobyns, thyroid surgeon, flew out to Kwajalein and the
entire team evaluated the 14 prospective surgical candidates.
All were cleared
for transfer to Brookhaven National Laboratory for medical evaluation and then on
to Cleveland Western Reserve for definitive surgery.
The group was divided into
nine patients who underwent surgery in early July, and a group of five who
underwent surgery in September.
A third survey was conducted in September and
October covering a five week period.
This survey was directed towards the
treatment of dental and ophthalmologic problems and the treatment of intestinal
parasites on the major islands.
Thyroid abnormalities continue to be the only definitive findings related to
radiation exposure.
During the past year, thyroid surgery was done on seven of
the exposed group and five of the unexposed comparison group.
[In addition,
Surgery was performed on two Marshallese from Wotje Atoll who were not in the long
term study groups; one of these lesions turned out to be a carcinoma.
There have
now been 48 thyroid abnormalities (41 with surgery) among the 246 exposed
Marshallese (4i% of the Rongelap people and 8% of the Utirik people).
The
occurrence of three thyroid cancers in the exposed Utirik population (compared
with four in the Rongelap group) appears to indicate radiation exposure in the
etiology, but the high incidence is puzzling since it is greater than would be
predicted based on Rongelap and Japanese data and there does not appear to have
been any increase in benign thyroid tumors in the Utirik group compared to the
greater prevalence in the Rongelap group.
Because of the uncertainty of the
incidence of thyroid tumors in unexposed Marshall Islanders and in order to obtain
better statistics,
thyroid examinations were included for all unexposed Rongelap
and Utirik people on any of the Marshall Islands visited. This study has been
extended to include thyroid surgery when indicated. Also, in order to help solve
HA~o> 255
[045221