Islanders Affected By Fall-Out

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30900, 5 November 1965, Page 17

Islanders Affected By Fall-Out

(N.Z.P A.-Reuter —Copyright)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4.

More Pacific islanders are beginning to experience thyroid gland defects after being accidently exposed to radio-active fallout from a 1954 American H-bomb test.

A medical survey team recently sent to the Marshall Islands by the United States Atomic Energy Commission discovered that six cases of thyroid damage among 82 Rongelap islanders had now risen to 13, with five additional cases described as “questionable.” Two of the cases concern boys who were said by the commission to have been stunted in their growth. Most of the abnormalities of the thyroid glands are thought to be benign tumours, but at least one woman was found to have a cancerous condition.

Five of the newly-discover-

ed cases have been operated

The medical team, headed by Dr. Robert Conard, of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, is expected to visit the islands again next year. The science correspondent of the “Washington Post” described the new cases as constituting a “significant number.”

He wrote that the finding of latent damage meant that atomic experts must now re- ' vise their estimates of the • hazard from short-lived radioactive debris. This is the kind of fall-out ■ which occurs mostly near an atomic blast and which enters ■ the human body through food and drink.