Marshall Islands Program

The Marshall Islands Program was established in 1954 by the Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor agency to the Department of Energy (DOE), following the accidental exposure of people present on two atolls, Rongelap and Utrõk, to fallout from the U.S. nuclear test at the Bikini atoll. The program has two components: A special medical program that provides annual comprehensive medical screenings to detect and treat tumors, and a radiological and environmental monitoring program to characterize the radioactive materials in the environment and in naturally occurring food plants in the four contaminated atolls of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrõk, in order to facilitate the resettlement of these atolls, two of which are resettled.

The DOE responsibility to provide medical surveillance and care, environmental monitoring and characterization, and dose assessment for the peoples of the Marshall Islands is contained in U.S. Public Law. Since 1956, DOE and its predecessor agencies have provided state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment for the DOE patient population of Rongelap and Utrõk atolls. DOE also provides technical assistance to aid the four affected atolls of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrõk in their efforts to resettle these atolls.

Some individuals in the Republic of the Marshall Islands believed that the medical program harbored an undisclosed experimental research program. In October 1995, the U.S. Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (Advisory Committee) issued its final report, which stated, in part, that the committee "found no evidence to support the claim that the exposures [to radioactive fallout] of the Marshallese, either initially or after resettlement, were motivated by research purposes."

In an effort to dismantle the barriers that have contributed to distrust observed by the Advisory Committee, DOE actively promotes efforts to locate, declassify when necessary and make available documents on the medical care, radiological monitoring activities, and documents about the weapons tests. All known classified documents are now declassified and available on the Internet.