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Radioactive exposure guinea pigs – the Marshall Islanders

…. The desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment appeared to be a major element of this decision…” by far the most contaminated place in the world.”

The Legacy of U.S. Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands, THE HUFFINGTON POST, Robert Alvarez: 23 May 2010, The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist for many years to come. The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of the Rongelap Atoll in 1954 following a very large thermonuclear explosion which deposited life-threatening quantities of radioactive fallout on their homeland. They received more than three times the estimated external dose than to the most heavily exposed people living near the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. It took more than two days before the Rongelap people were evacuated after the explosion. Many suffered from tissue destructive effects, such as burns, and subsequently from latent radiation-induced diseases

In 1957, they were returned to their homeland even though officials and scientists working for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) determined that radiation doses would significantly exceed those allowed for citizens of the United States. The desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated environment appeared to be a major element of this decision. A scientist in a previously secret transcript of a meeting where they decided to return the Rongelap people to their atoll stated an island contaminated by the 1954 H-Bomb tests was ” by far the most contaminated place in the world.” He further concluded that, “it would very interesting to go back and get good environmental data… so as to get a measure of the human uptake, when people live in a contaminated environment…Now, data of this type has never been available. …While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners so, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that they are more like us than the mice “
By 1985, the people of Rongelap fled their atoll, after determining that the levels of contamination were comparable to the Bikini atoll where numerous nuclear devices were detonated. The Bikini people were re-settled in 1969 but had to evacuate their homes in1978 after radiation exposures were found to be excessive………..
As it now stands, if forced to return to their homeland the Rongelap people could receive radiation doses about 10 times greater than allowed for the public in the United States.

Robert Alvarez: The Legacy of U.S. Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands

May 24, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | OCEANIA, secrets,lies and civil liberties | antinuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive