by the universe square ration rule,
emanating immediately
from the bomb would be highly unlikely.
1 think the 111 effects still persisting on these
islands is not only @ue to soil contamination but is also
due to entry of the radioactive elements with a longer
half life into the food, where it has been biologically
concentrated, and is eaten by the people.
Whether the
material that contains the radioisotopes is in one parti-
cular vegetable or several or whether it is in the fish
or birds,
I simply do not know.
One would think,
that if
the lagoon fish were involved, the food-chain exposure
would involve only a few islands since I am told that
lagoon fish usually stay in their lagoon.
-If the large
fish on the seaside that swim between atolls are involved
and carry radioactivity in their flesh, these fish also
being eaten by the pistianders, one would expect a wider
C@iffusion of the effects
of the radioactivity,
-- which
is what has happened.
There certainly would be diffusion
by birds and actual transfer from one atoll to another of
radioactive material in the excrement of birds flying
between the
attols.
The wide diffusion of radioactive effects among the
islands of the Marshalls,
strongly suggests
entry into
the food chain with transportation between islands.
is
as
yet only
an
opinion.
Yet otherwise
one
must
This
assume
that the fallout just simply was so high, and has spread
so far beyond that estimated by our finest nuclear scientists
that cistant islands and distant atolls in the Marshalls
were involved, bringing about the radiation effects that
I have described.
To my Knowledge,
two cases
of leukemia were
found,
one in a high government officer, and the other in a boy.
There may be others.
I am suspicious also that radiation
plays
a part here also because of the
in the Nagasaki-Hiroshima survivors.
I think that these three:
frequency of leukemia
the tumors of the thyroid