The effect of U.S. nuclear testing on the Marshallese (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)

By Hugh Gusterson | 25 October 2007

... Between 1946 and 1958, the United States used the Marshall Islands--a U.N. Trust Territory administered by the United States--as nuclear proving grounds, especially for weapons considered too big to test in the continental United States. The largest of these weapons was the 1954 Bravo shot (at 15 megatons about 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb). These tests forced the relocation of all the inhabitants of the Bikini and Enewetak atolls and spread plumes of radioactivity across the entire cluster of 33 atolls. They released 6.3 billion curies of radioactive iodine-131 alone--42 times the amount released by atmospheric nuclear testing in Nevada.

The National Cancer Institute has predicted a 9 percent increase in cancers for the Marshallese as a result of nuclear testing in the Pacific. Since the Marshallese number about 55,000, roughly 500 extra cancers are expected. The anthropologist Holly Barker, who has devoted her life to helping the Marshallese deal with the aftermath of nuclear abuse, reports an epidemic of birth defects, cancer, mental retardation, thyroid disorders, and suicides among the local population. U.S. officials should be forced to read her account of a Marshallese mother watching one son die shortly after birth as his skin peeled off and nursing her second, missing the back of his skull, gently holding his brain in as he ate.

The Marshallese lack the basic medical infrastructure to deal with this disaster. In Barker's words, "There is no oncologist in the Marshall Islands, no chemotherapy, no cancer registry, and no nationwide screening program for early detection of cancer." ...

The Senate is now considering Senate Bill 1756, which would increase U.S. funding for the Marshallese from the paltry to the merely pitiful. This legislation contains four provisions. First, it would place a nuclear waste site on the Marshall Islands under Energy oversight. Second, it would mandate a National Academy of Sciences study of the nonradiogenic health effects of nuclear testing on the Marshallese--the effects of forced relocation, changed diet, and so on. Third, the amount of money available to fund health care would double to about $2 million a year and be indexed to inflation. Finally, Marshallese who cleaned contaminated sites under U.S. supervision would be compensated for consequent illnesses just like the U.S. Energy workers who also cleaned these sites. At present, although Marshallese fight in Iraq wearing U.S. uniforms, Washington says they are not eligible for the same compensation as Energy workers because they are not U.S. citizens. Now they're American, now they're not ...

http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/hugh-gusterson/20071025.html

I think our government owes it to the Marshallese to compensate them and take care of all of them. When they were moved from these islands, they were told that they would only have to stay away for a year. It turned out to be very much longer and some of the islands are still uninhabitable. Shameful.

on the DOC channel that featured the towns surrounding Chernobyl. They are still reluctant to publicly state a connection between health effects and radiation.
A 1,000% increase in thyroid cancer, children with all kinds of deformities, including the brain on the exterior of a child's skull.

Criminality rules in these cases all over the world.

of why I consider the USA the worst of the worst. God forgive america. :(