[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 15 (Tuesday, February 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: February 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
URGING THE ADMINISTRATION TO INCLUDE THE MARSHALL ISLANDERS IN A
GOVERNMENT STUDY OF RADIATION EXPERIMENTS
(Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and was given permission to address the House
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks, and include
extraneous material.)
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on an issue that has
bothered me for some time and that is finally getting proper attention:
The sorry legacy of our Nation's nuclear testing program in the
Pacific--which involved 66 nuclear explosions in the 1940's and 1950's.
In particular, I have long believed that when the United States
detonated the Bravo shot--a 17 megaton thermonuclear bomb--on Bikini
Atoll, the people of the Marshall Islands, especially those residents
on nearby Rongelap and Utirik Atolls, were deemed expendable. The U.S.
Defense Department has admitted that when the explosion took place, it
knew islanders were downwind and in the path of windborne radiation.
Mr. Speaker, the Bravo explosion was equivalent to 1,300 times the
destructive force of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
From my discussions with Marshall Island leaders, they believe their
people were used as guinea pigs and test subjects for U.S. radiation
experiments. I share that belief.
Recently, Government documents have come to light that give weight to
that position.
Archive documents released by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and
related Federal agencies show that U.S. scientists callously viewed the
Marshall islanders as little better than laboratory mice. According to
recent press reports, an Atomic Energy Commission official discussing
the Marshall Islands nuclear tests was quoted in 1956 as saying:
While it is true that these people do not live, I would say
in, the way westerners do, civilized people, it is
nevertheless true that these people are more like us than the
mice.
The same Government official further stated:
They have been living on that island, now that the island
is safe to live on, but it is by far the most contaminated
place in the world.
Mr. Speaker, I find these remarks by a representative of the U.S.
Government to be disturbing and tragic, and I am gratified to see that
my fellow colleagues have likewise been shocked.
I especially want to commend Hon. John Dingell, chairman of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, who, based on these remarks, has
requested President Clinton to include the Marshall islanders in the
comprehensive investigation of Government conducted radiation
experiments.
I further commend Hon. George Miller, chairman of the House Committee
on Natural Resources, who has called for hearings to look into the
legacy of our nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands.
Mr. Speaker, I applaud the Clinton administration's call for an
intensive review of Government radiation experiments. It is about time
that our great Nation faces responsibility for its nuclear
experimentation and the devastating impact on countless numbers of
innocent people, many of them Americans. Likewise, it is only just and
appropriate that we include that Marshall islanders in this study,
rectify our mistakes, and bring this tragic chapter in our history to a
close.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the record a timely article on this
subject in yesterday's Washington Times. I also include excerpts from
an excellent book on the U.S. nuclear testing program in the Marshall
Islands, ``Day of Two Suns,'' by Author Jane Dibblin, which detail the
immense suffering endured by these people of the Pacific.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following printed material.
[From the Washington Times, Feb. 21, 1994]
Nuclear Remarks Under Fire--1950's Talk Shocks 1994 Observers
(By Michael Hedges)
Documents found in the archives of federal atomic agencies
reveal a callous attitude by U.S. scientists toward using
Pacific islanders as test subjects after atomic blasts in the
1950s.
``While it is true that these people do not live, I would
say, the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is
nevertheless true that these people are more like us than the
mice,'' said a scientist in the official minutes of a January
1956 meeting of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in New
York.
``They have been living on that island, now that the island
is safe to live on, but it is by far the most contaminated
place in the world,'' he said. The minutes of that meeting
were partially declassified in 1986. Last month more portions
were released.
Those remarks have led Rep. John Dingell, Michigan
Democrat, to ask the Clinton administration to reconsider its
decision not to include Marshall Islanders in a widespread
study of possible radiation experiments by the government.
The comments also may be raised at a hearing this week by a
subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
But the scientist quoted in the minutes said Saturday that
his remarks have been taken out of context and possibly
misstated. He warned of reaching conclusions in 1994 based on
things said with a world view of the 1950s--a warning others
have raised as the Clinton administration embarks on a review
of government radiation experiments during the early years of
atomic energy:
``I have seen those remarks; it is a mystery to me,'' said
Merle Eisenbud. Mr. Eisenbud, who now lives in North
Carolina, has been called to Washington to testify before the
House committee on Thursday.
``The whole thing is taken out of context,'' he said.
``That was a two-day meeting, and as I remember I was doing
most of the talking. I may have been tired, or the
stenographer may have been tired. I may just have been
stupid,'' he said.
But in any event, ``we were not looking for effects'' of
radiation poisoning, he said. ``The dose would have been too
low for that. We wanted to develop models for how strontium-
90 worked in the environment. There was a critical need to
know that.''
The Marshall Islands were the site of a U.S. hydrogen bomb
test on March 1, 1954, the Bravo Shot near the Bikini atoll
in the Marshalls that wafted radioactive ash throughout the
Pacific island chain.
The remarks in the 1956 documents have led Mr. Dingell,
chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and its
oversight and investigations subcommittee, to petition the
Clinton administration.
``Recently, the subcommittee learned that the inhabitants
of Utirik Atoll [in the Marshalls] may have been used as
human guinea pigs,'' he wrote to Christine Varney, President
Clinton's executive assistant.
``Not only does this document suggest the existence of yet
another previously secret radiation experiment, it also
reflects extraordinary callousness on the part of U.S.
government officials,'' Mr. Dingell wrote.
The minutes of meetings on Jan. 13 and 14, 1956, by the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's advisory committee on biology
and medicine total more than 300 pages. The parts that have
been released seem to show an ongoing government effort to
measure radiation effects in the Marshalls.
Mr. Eisenbud told the panel, ``I want to re-emphasize that
the program you have heard today is a program that is in
progress now.''
He continued: ``We think that one very intriguing study can
be made and plans are on the way to implement this. . . .
Utirik Atoll is the atoll furthest from the March 1st shot
where people were exposed, got initially about 15
roentgens.''
He said there were plans under way to test the urine of
islanders, ``so as to get a measure of the human uptake when
people live in a contaminated environment.''
``Data on this type has never been available,'' he said.
``So that is something which will be done this winter.''
But on Saturday Mr. Eisenbud said that the government did
not follow up on plans to gather data on the Marshall
Islanders. ``Our analytic methods were not very good in
1956,'' he said. ``The fact that they were living in a
contaminated environment could have allowed us to make
measurements we couldn't make in New York or Paris or
London,'' he said. ``But in the end, we never followed up
on that.''
The 15-megaton thermonuclear Bravo Shot was 1,000 times
more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan during World
War II. Utirik Atoll, and another inhabited island, Rongelap,
were directly downwind from the explosion, with Rongelap only
100 miles from ground zero. About 239 islanders were exposed.
In a letter to Mr. Clinton in early January, Rep. George
Miller, California Democrat, noted that ``some Rongelapese
have said they believe they were used as ``guinea pigs'' to
further U.S. understanding of the effects of radiation on
humans.
``In light of recent disclosures regarding actual radiation
experimentation in the United States during this period, that
possibility cannot be ignored,'' he wrote.
But the administration decided in January that the Marshall
Islands would not be included in the ongoing review by the
White House's Human Radiation Interagency Working Group
because there was no evidence that radiation experiments were
conducted on people living there.
Mr. Dingell said in a letter to the White House on
Thursday: ``Not only does this document suggest the existence
of yet another previously secret radiation experiment, it
also reflects extraordinary callousness on the part of U.S.
government officials.''
Ms. Varney could not be reached for comment Friday or over
the weekend.
In his letter to the White House, Mr. Dingell emphasized
the ``mice'' comparison in the transcript. Mr. Eisenbud said
the remark was much more damaging isolated from a 300-page
document than in context. ``If you look at it, you see I said
the mice. Earlier in the conversation we had been talking
about an experiment using mice and I was referring back to
that experiment,'' he said.
Since the 1980s the Defense Department has admitted that
officials knew the islanders were in the path of windblown
debris from the bombs.
When the Marshalls became an independent country in 1986,
the United States said islanders had been compensated for the
high cancer rates that afflicted them after the war. The
Marshallese claimed the payments were inadequate and charged
information had not been released. According to some studies,
about 500 islanders or their children and grandchildren
suffer some effects of radiation poisoning.
____
Day of Two Suns
(By Jane Dibblin)
At 6:45 on the morning of 1 March 1954, eight years after
testing in the Marshall Islands began, the U.S. detonated a
bomb codenamed ``Bravo'' on the Island of Bikini. The bomb
was equivalent to 17 megatons of TN, 1,300 times the
destructive force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and was
specifically designed to create a vast amount of lethal
fallout. That morning the wind was blowing in the direction
of two inhabited atolls, Rongelap and Utrik, roughly 100 and
300 miles from Bikini. During previous tests Rongelap and
Utrik had been evacuated. For some reason never yet divulged,
there was no attempt to evacuate them before Bravo.
The first the islanders knew of Bravo was an intense light,
like a strange sun dawning in the west. Later they heard the
explosion. By mid-day the fallout, a fine powder which fell
from the sky, had reached Rongelap.
Lemoyo Abon, now a teacher, shares her experience:
I was 14 at the time and my sister Roko was 12. That day
our teacher had asked us--my sister and I and our two
cousins--to cook rice for the other children. We got up early
to do it. When we saw the bright light and heard a sound--
boom--we were really scared. At that time we had no idea what
it was. After noon, something powdery fell from the sky. Only
later were we told it was fallout. With Roko and several
cousins, I went to our village on the end of Rongelap Island
to gather some sprouted coconuts. One cousin climbed the
coconut tree and got something in her eyes, so we sent
another one up. The same thing happened to her. When we went
home--ours was the main village on Rongelap--it was raining.
We saw something on the leaves, something yellow. Our parents
asked, ``What's happened to your hair?'' It looked like we'd
rubbed soap powder in it.
That night we couldn't sleep, our skin itched so much. On
our feet were burns, as if from hot water. Our hair fell out.
We'd look at each other and laugh--you're bald, you look like
an old man. But really we were frightened and sad.
The pale powder continued to fall until late afternoon, by
which time it was about one and a half inches deep. Later it
emerged that it was in fact particles of lime (calcium oxide)
formed when Bikini's coral reef (a formation of calcium
carbonate) melted in the intense heat of the bomb and was
sucked up and scattered for miles. The exact dose of
radiation received by the islanders was never measured, but
it was estimated that people on Utrik received 14 rem and
those on Rongelap 175 rem. The International Commission on
Radiological Protection now recommends that a maximum
permission total body dose to a member of the general public
be 0.5 rem a year.
John Anjain, a magistrate on Rongelap at the time, tells
what happened over the next two days--and why his people
sometimes refer to the event as the ``Day of Two Suns'':
``On the morning of the `bomb' I was awake and drinking
coffee. I thought I saw what appeared to be the sunrise, but
it was in the west. It was truly beautiful with many
colours--red, green and yellow--and I was surprised. A little
while later, the sun rose in the east. Then some time later
something like smoke filled the entire sky and shortly after
that a strong and warm wind--as a typhoon--swept across
Rongelap. Then all of the people heard the great sound of
the explosion. Some people began to cry with fright.
Several hours later the powder began to fall on Rongelap.
We saw four planes fly overhead, and we thought perhaps
the planes had dropped this powder, which covered our
island and stuck to our bodies. The visibility was less
than one half mile at the time, due to the haze in the
sky.
The next day, early in the morning, I looked at all of the
catchments with Jabwe [the health aide] and Billiet [the
school principal and we noted the water had turned to yellow.
I then warned the people not to drink from these water
catchments, and told them to drink only Ni [coconut milk].
The people began to get sick with vomiting, aches all over
the body, eye irritations and general weakness and fatigue.
After the second day most of the people were unable to move
around as usual due to their fatigue. Just a few strong young
men were up and about at that time and I asked them to fetch
some coconuts for the rest of us to drink. On the evening of
the second day a seaplane arrived from Emewetak with two men
who brought some strange machines. They stayed only about 20
minutes and they took some readings of water catchments and
soil, then took off again. They really did not tell us very
much.''
Not far from Rongelap, U.S. Navy ships were measuring the
intensity of radioactivity. They were not instructed to
rescue the Rongelap people; indeed, the task force command
ordered them to sail away from the area. Twenty-eight service
personnel stationed on Rongelap Atoll to provide hourly
weather reports were also exposed to radiation, and were not
told when Bravo would be exploded. It was two days before the
Navy arrived to pick up the Rongelap Islanders and the U.S.
personnel--two days in which they breathed, slept and ate the
fallout.
``No satisfactory answer has been given as to why they were
not rescued as soon as it was known that they had been in the
path of the fallout. Immediate decontamination on board ship
would have at least minimized some of the horrific effects of
radiation sickness. Instead, belatedly, the ships took the
Rongelapese to the U.S. military base on Kwajalein Island, as
Entry Enos explains:
``When we arrived on Kawajalein we started getting burns
all over our bodies, and people were feeling dizzy and weak.
At that time we did not know if we would ever return to
Rongelap and we were afraid. After two days something
appeared under my fingernails and then my fingernails came
off and my fingers bled. We all had burns on our ears,
shoulders, necks and feet, and our eyes were very sore.''
Billiet Edmond kept a diary at the time. In one of his
entries he described the injuries as follows:
``After two days on Kwajalein, a group of military doctors
began their studying on the victims. Nausea, skin-burns,
diarrhea, headaches, eye pain, hair fall-out, numbness, skin
discoloration were among common complaints. It had been so
for quite a while. The children were more critical. My 10-
year-old adopted son had severe burns on his body, feet,
head, neck and ears. I cannot help remembering those
sleepless nights we had to hold him down onto his bed as he
would have jumped up and down, scratching, rolling, as though
insane.
``Although I had also some burns on my back, feet and
hands, and my hair was falling out, I knew I had been the
least affected, and I deeply felt pity about those who
suffered the most.''
``On Kwajalein the Rongelapese were given medical
treatment. It was cursory, to say the least. Film footage of
that time shows lines of Marshalese people being `inspected'.
Jabwe Jojour, health aide on Rongelap, was angered by the
lack of information given to the islanders about their
injuries, and he states:
``When we arrived in Kwajalein we immediately showered for
several hours at the military base there. After some days a
medical team flew out from the U.S., and they are still
treating us today. After three days we had burns all over our
bodies, and our hair began to fall out; some people actually
went bald. When we asked the Atomic Energy Commission doctors
to help us understand what had happened, they did not tell
us, and today they do not tell us the truth about our
problems.''
``A Japanese tuna fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, was also
caught in the path of Bravo's fallout. It was 100 miles east
of Bikini when the bomb was detonated. The crew members
suffered headaches and nausea and by the time they reached
Japan two weeks later all 23 were suffering from radiation
sickness, with skin blisters and falling hair. One of the
crew members, Aikichi Kuboyama, died of liver and blood
damage on 23 September. The fisherman's injuries caused an
international outcry and two years later the U.S. handed over
$2 million in compensation to the Japanese Government.
For three years the people of Rongelap led an uncertain and
unsettled existence, shunted around different islands, first
Ebeye, then Ejit Island in Majuro Atoll, waiting to be told
it was safe to return home.
The Rongelap people had a long wait before they saw their
land again, but they too returned with mixed feelings. Etry
Eno recalls:
``I was afraid to return to Rongelap in 1957 but they said
it was safe for us. We did not understand what `poison'
[radiation] was, and if we had we would not have returned.
Now we really understand that the `poison' is dangerous and
that Rongelap is contaminated. In 1957 [we were told] that we
could eat anything we wanted except the coconut crab. When we
ate the arrowroot it really burned our mouths. Everything we
were used to eating had changed color and we were surprised
that we were allowed to eat our foods in Rongelap, even
though we knew that the foods were unusual in colour.''
John Anjain remembers:
``At the time of our return the High Commissioner and some
representatives from the United Nations Trusteeship Council
came to our island. We asked them if it was safe to return to
our island and they all agreed that there was still a little
bit of radiation left on Rongelap and that it might injure
our health, but not very much. With that slight reassurance
we returned, but we had much fear then.''
``For 22 years the people of Utrik were told that the dose
of radiation they allegedly received, 14 rems, was too low to
cause any concern. The exposed people were therefore examined
only once every year, and those not directly exposed to
fallout--who nevertheless returned to the atoll and were
living off irradiated food--were not examined at all. That in
itself caused resentment, with the `unexposed' group feeling
they too should be monitored and both groups feeling that
radiation was taking its toll.
``How exactly did radiation affect the health of the
islanders? Even before returning to Rongelap and Utrik,
people began to realize that the burns, intense itching,
nausea and hair loss they had experienced in the first weeks
after Bravo were not the end of their problems. One of the
most disturbing and terrifying effects was on women's
reproductive systems and on children yet to be born. Some
women who became pregnant in the years following Bravo found
they suffered an unexpectedly high number of miscarriages and
severely deformed babies, many of whom died. Almira Matayoshi
was 17 and living on Rongelap at the time of Bravo, and she
states:
``One of my babies was born in 1955 [the year after Bravo]
and it did not have any bones in its body. After that I had
problems with the next pregnancy and they had to rush me to
Kwajelein Hospital because I was bleeding. There they gave me
a D and C and it caused me so much pain that I was
temporarily blinded--they had to give me ten pints of
blood.''
Mary Sampson was only seven when she was caught in the
fallout on Rongelap. When she reached child-bearing age she
suffered similar experiences:
``I have had very many problems with childbearing. My first
baby lived for a very short time--several minutes--but it was
not healthy and did not move around very much when it was
born. I was very sad and confused because I was healthy then,
and then when I thought about it I remembered that I had
`poison' in my body and that is why the baby died, later
another baby was born and it too died shortly after birth.
Then I had a miscarriage after four months. Now I am always
afraid when I am pregnant and this fear is shared by all
women on Utrik and Rongelap. Even my healthy children may
someday get radiation diseases.''
``Women on Wotje and Utrik too have had deeply traumatic
births. Kathe Judo lives on Wotje and describes what the
Marshallese women now call `jellyfish babies' ''.
``I saw three different women give birth to strange things
after the `bomb'. One was like the bark of a coconut tree.
One was like a watery mass that was not human-like. Another
was again like a watery mass of grapes or something like
that. I believe that these things are all caused by `the
bomb.'''
Nelly Aplos was 19 when she heard bravo explode from her
home island of Utrik:
``Now I have lots of aches and pains in my body, notably in
my back, chest and under my breast. I have lost three babies
after 'the bomb'--and never had any problem before. The first
baby lived for two days and then the baby's skin turned blue
and it died. Later when I was six month pregnant the baby
died and I was very sick at the time. After that I was
pregnant for two months and then I had a jibun [miscarriage].
I know now that I have a lot of poison in my body and I am
certain that this makes the babies weak. I was never sick
during any of my pregnancies (except after I lost my babies)
and this never happened before the bomb. I have heard from
other women in Utrik about many cases of jibun * * * I also
have heard of some babies who do not know how to suck from
their mother's breast and who eventually die of hunger.''
When I spent time with the Rongelap people in 1986. I met
one evening with the women on Mejato. We talked about why I
was there, the problems they were facing and how women's
groups and peace group in the West could work with them.
Suddenly one woman who had been sitting silently in a corner
spoke up. She was Katherine Jilel, the midwife and a
grandmother. She spoke forcefully through her tears:
``We are very angry at the U.S. and I'll tell you why. Have
you ever seen a jellyfish baby born looking like a bunch of
grapes, so the only reason we knew it was a baby was because
we could see the brain? We've had these babies--they died
soon after they were born.''
Later she told me about her own baby:
``Our first baby was born in October 1960, after the bomb,
when we'd returned to Rongelap. He was born with a big lump
on his head and died very, very young. All the food we were
eating was irradiated but we didn't know. I wasn't even on
Rongelap the day the test happened but I went back there in
1957 and I was irradiated from eating the food. I think
that's why my son died.''
The testimonies of women who have given birth to an
unformed fetus or who have suffered repeated miscarriages are
too numerous to include them all here. Many women have chosen
not to show the babies to their partners; some cannot bear to
see them themselves, says Marshellese health worker Darlene
Keju-Johnson:
``When they die they are buried right away. A lot of times
they don't allow the mother to see this kind of baby because
she'll go crazy.
Radiation can damage an unborn child in various ways:
firstly, a fetus can be damaged by being exposed to radiation
while in the mother's womb. Almost a Quarter of pregnant
women exposed within a mile and quarter of the explosion in
Hiroshima lost their pregnancies through miscarriages or
stillbirths. Of the live births, a quarter died when they
were less than one year old, and a quarter of the children
who survived had mental handicaps. Many children suffered
microcephaly: an abnormally small head circumference and
severe mental handicaps. Japanese Hibakusha (radiation
survivors) were mostly unable to have children during the
first three years after the bombing: Those who conceived of
then aborted unformed, unrecognizable fetuses late in the
pregnancy.''
____________________