Project 4.

1
Project 4.1 was the designation for a medical study
and experimentation conducted by the United States of
those residents of the Marshall Islands exposed to
radioactive fallout from the March 1, 1954 Castle
Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, which had an
unexpectedly large yield. Government and mainstream
historical sources point to the study being organized on
March 6 or March 7, 1954, less than a week after the
Bravo shot.

Establishment and secrecy

In the wake of the Castle Bravo detonation, a new
research section was added to the Castle Bravo
Weapons Effects research section. Program 4,
"Biomedical effects," was to include one project,
Project 4.1, titled "Study of Response of Human
Beings exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma
Radiation due to Fall-out from High-Yield Weapons."
Eugene P. Cronkite of the National Naval Medical
Center was designated as Project Officer.[1] Cronkite's
instructions stressed the importance of secrecy
The cover to the Project 4.1 Final Report, "Study
surrounding the project:
of Response of Human Beings Accidentally
Exposed to Significant Fallout Radiation."
... the project is classified SECRET
RESTRICTED DATA. Due to possible
adverse public reaction, you will specifically
instruct all personnel in this project to be
particularly careful not to discuss the purpose
of this project and its background or findings
with any except those who have specific
"need to know."[2]

The purpose of the project, as a 1982 Defense Nuclear Agency report explained, was both medical as well
as for research purposes:
 The purposes of [Project 4.1] were to (1) evaluate the severity of radiation injury to the human
beings exposed, (2) provide for all necessary medical care, and (3) conduct a scientific study of
radiation injuries to human beings.[3]

Preparation
As a Department of Energy Committee writing on the human radiation experiments wrote, "It appears to
have been almost immediately apparent to the AEC and the Joint Task Force running the Castle series that
research on radiation effects could be done in conjunction with the medical treatment of the exposed
populations."[4] The DOE report also concluded that "The dual purpose of what is now a DOE medical
program has led to a view by the Marshallese that they were being used as 'guinea pigs' in a 'radiation
experiment.'"[4]

Organizations involved in the project included the

Naval Medical Research Institute, the Naval
Radiological Defense Laboratory, Patrol Squadron 29,
the Naval Air Station, Kwajalein, Los Alamos National
Laboratory, the Applied Fisheries Laboratory at the
University of Washington, and Hanford Atomic Power
Operations. Three U.S. Navy ships were used in the
project: USS Nicholas, USS Renshaw, and USS
Philip.[3] The primary study of the Marshallese was
terminated around 75 days after the time of exposure.
In July 1954 a meeting at the Division of Biology at
the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission decided to
The Castle Bravo fallout plume spread dangerous
complete 6- and 12-month follow-up exposure studies,
levels of radiation over an area over 100 miles
some of which were later written up as addendums to
long, including inhabited islands.
Project 4.1.[5]

Intentionality
Some Marshallese have alleged that the exposure of the Marshallese was premeditated. In 1972,
Micronesian Representative Ataji Balos charged at the Congress of Micronesia that the exposure during
Bravo was purposeful so that the AEC could develop medical capabilities for treating those exposed to
fallout during nuclear war, and charged that the Marshallese were chosen because of their marginal status in
the world at large. According to a U.S. internal transcription of Balos' talk, Balos alleged that "The U.S.
chose to make guinea pigs out of our people because they are not white but some brown natives in some
remote Pacific islands. Medical treatment that Rongelapese and Utrikese have been receiving is also highly
questionable."[6] The AEC issued a staff comment denying these charges.

In 1994, a 1953 Castle Bravo program prospectus was found which included reference to Project 4.1
apparently written before the Bravo shot had occurred. The U.S. government responded that someone had
gone back into the project list after the Bravo test to insert Project 4.1; thus, according to the U.S.
government, the acts were not premeditated. All other U.S. documents point to Project 4.1 having been
established after the Bravo test—most sources point to its having been organized on March 7, 1954.[7] The
final Project 4.1 report began in its preface with the statement that "Operation CASTLE did not include a
biomedical program" (it mentions this in discussing the ad hoc nature by which the project personnel were
assembled).[8] All official and mainstream historical accounts of the Bravo test indicate that its high level of
fallout was a result of a miscalculation in relation to its design and was not deliberate (see the Castle Bravo
article for more information on the alleged accident).

Barton C. Hacker, the official historian of U.S. nuclear testing exposures (who is, in the end, very critical of
the U.S. handling of the Bravo incident), characterized the controversy in the following way:

In March 1954, the AEC had quickly decided that learning how the Marshallese victims of Castle
Bravo responded to their accidental exposure could be of immense medical and military value.
Immediate action centered on seeing them evacuated and decontaminated, then cared for
medically. But studies of their exposures and aftereffects also began. That effort became project
4.1 in the Castle experimental program. This unfortunate choice of terminology may help explain
later charges that the AEC had deliberately exposed the Marshallese to observe the effects. Like
the American radium dial painters of the 1920s and the Japanese of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
1945, the Marshallese of 1954 inadvertently were to provide otherwise unobtainable data on the
human consequences of high radiation exposures. Findings from project 4.1 soon began to
appear in print.[9]

Controversy continues however, fed by the legacy of

mistrust sown by American nuclear testing in the
Marshall Islands, which involved relocating hundreds
of people and rendering several atolls uninhabitable.
While most sources do not think that the exposure was
intentional, there is no dispute that the United States
did carefully study the exposed Marshallese, but never
obtained informed consent from the study subjects.
This study of the Marshallese was in some cases
beneficial for their treatment, and in other cases not. In
these ways, the study of the exposed Marshallese
reflects the same ethical lapses as were undertaken in
other aspects of the secret human radiation experiments
conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission in the
1940s and 1950s, which came to light only after the
end of the Cold War.

Results about effects Photographs of exposed Marshallese studied

during Project 4.1 (in this case, the photographs
According to the Final Project 4.1 report, the Bravo are showing the development and healing of neck
test exposed 239 Marshallese on the Utirik, Rongelap, lesions) caused by the nuclear fallout sticking to
and Ailinginae Atolls to significant level of radiation, the common damp areas of exposed human skin,
and the resulting beta burns.[10]
and 28 Americans stationed on the Rongerik Atoll
were also exposed. Those on the Rongelap Atoll were
the most seriously affected, receiving approximately 175 rads of radiation before they were evacuated.
Those on Ailinginae received 69 rads, those on Utirik received 14 rads, and the Americans on Rongerik
received an average dose of 78 rads.[11][12][13][14]
The results of the original Project 4.1 were published by the study's authors in professional medical journals
in 1955, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association.[15]

In 2010 it was calculated that by sub-population, the projected proportion of cancers attributable to radiation
from fallout from all nuclear tests conducted in the Marshall Islands is 55% (with a 28% to 69% uncertainty
range) among 82 persons exposed in 1954 on Rongelap Atoll and Ailinginae Atoll.[16]

Most of the individuals exposed did not immediately show signs of radiation sickness, though within a few
days other effects of significant radiation exposure manifested: loss of hair and significant skin damage,
including "raw, weeping lesions", among the Rongelap and Ailinginae groups. The lesions healed quickly,
however, consistent with radiation exposure. The report abstract concluded that "estimates of total body
burden indicate that there is no long term hazard."[8]

Additional follow-up checks on the Marshallese studied in Project 4.1 were conducted at regular intervals
afterwards every year since 1954. Though the Marshallese experienced far milder immediate effects than
the Japanese fishermen exposed to Bravo fallout on the fishing boat Daigo Fukuryū Maru, the long-term
effects were more pronounced as they depended largely on subsistence living and were relocated to the site
of the testing in Bikini, Ene Wetak, and Rongelap while the Japanese fisherman were returned to Japan. For
the first decade after the test, the effects were ambiguous and statistically difficult to correlate to radiation
exposure: miscarriages and stillbirths among exposed Rongelap women doubled in the first five years after
the accident, but then returned to normal; some developmental difficulties and impaired growth appeared in
children, but in no clear-cut pattern. In the decades that followed, though, the effects were undeniable.
Children began to disproportionately develop thyroid cancer (due to exposure to radioiodines),[17] and
almost a third of those exposed developed neoplasms by 1974.[9]

Notes
1. James Reeves to Frank D. Peel, "Establishment of Program 4 and Project 4.1 in Castle" (11
March 1954), online at [1] (https://web.archive.org/web/*/worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/F15.PD
F).
2. Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 146-147.
3. Edwin J. Martin and Richard H. Rowland, "Castle Series, 1951", Defense Nuclear Agency
Report DNA 6035F (1 April 1982), p. 186 and 188. Available online at
http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp1c/0858_a.pdf.
4. Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Chapter 12, Part
3: "The Marshallese". Available online at
https://ehss.energy.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap12_3.html.
5. See the "Introduction" of E.P. Cronkite, C.L. Dunham, David Griffin, S.D. McPherson, Kent T.
Woodward, Twelve-Month Postexposure Survey on Marshallese Exposed to Fallout
Radiation (Upton, NY: Brookhaven National Laboratory, August 1955). Available online at
http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp1a/1013_.pdf.
6. See entry under 25 Jan 1972 at http://worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/ Archived (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20041102135432/http://worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/) 2004-11-02 at the Wayback
Machine. Quote is from unclassified telegram DISTAD Palau to SECSTATE Wash. DC, 27
Jan 72, Document 48025, CIC, available online at http://worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/G15.PDF.
 7. See the chronologies at both the Department of Energy Marshall Islands Chronology (http://
worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20041102135432/http://wo
rf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/) 2004-11-02 at the Wayback Machine and Republic of the Marshall
Islands Embassy (http://www.rmiembassyus.org/Nuclear%20Issues.htm) Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20160424042410/http://www.rmiembassyus.org/Nuclear%20Issues.htm)
2016-04-24 at the Wayback Machine.
8. E.P. Cronkite, V.P. Bond, L.E. Browning, W.H. Chapman, S.H. Cohn, R.A. Conard, C.L.
Dunham, R.S. Farr, W.S. Hall, R. Sharp, N.R. Shulman, Study of Response of Human
Beings Accidentally Exposed to Significant Fallout Radiation, Operation CASTLE—Final
Report Project 4.1, Naval Medical Research Institute, Naval Radiological Defense
Laboratory, Defense Atomic Support Agency, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Report #WT-
923 (October 1954). Online at http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp2/2776_.pdf.
9. Barton C. Hacker, Elements of controversy: the Atomic Energy Commission and radiation
safety in nuclear weapons testing, 1947-1974 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1994): pp. 226-228.
10. United States. Dept. of the Army (1990). Nuclear handbook for medical service personnel (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=CAUYAAAAYAAJ&q=%22beta+burns%22&pg=PA18).
p. 18.
11. Johnston, Wm. Robert. "Castle Bravo nuclear test, 1954" (http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/n
uclear/radevents/1954USA1.html). Retrieved 25 July 2010.
12. "Operation Castle" (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Castle.html). 17 May 2006.
Retrieved 25 July 2010.
13. Jack C. Greene; Daniel J. Strom; Health Physics Society (1988). Would the insects inherit
the earth?. Pergamon Professional Publishers. p. 37.
14. Richard G. Hewlett; Jack M. Holl (1989). Atoms for peace and war, 1953-1961: Eisenhower
and the Atomic Energy Commission. University of California Press. p. 174.
15. For example, Cronkite, et al. Cronkite, Eugene P.; BOND VP; CONARD RA; SHULMAN NR;
FARR RS; COHN SH; DUNHAM CL; BROWNING LE (1955). "Response of Human Beings
Accidentally Exposed to Significant Fall-out Radiation". JAMA. 159 (5): 430–4.
doi:10.1001/jama.1955.02960220020007 (https://doi.org/10.1001%2Fjama.1955.029602200
20007). PMID 13251882 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13251882).
16. Land, CE; Bouville, A; Apostoaei, I; Simon, SL (2010). "Projected lifetime cancer risks from
exposure to local radioactive fallout in the Marshall Islands" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p
mc/articles/PMC3892964). Health Phys. 99 (2): 201–15.
doi:10.1097/HP.0b013e3181dc4e84 (https://doi.org/10.1097%2FHP.0b013e3181dc4e84).
PMC 3892964 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3892964). PMID 20622551 (h
ttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20622551).
17. Hempelmann, L H (1968). "Risk of thyroid neoplasms after irradiation in childhood. Studies
of populations exposed to radiation in childhood show a dose response over a wide dose
range". Science. 160(3824) (3824): 159–63. doi:10.1126/science.160.3824.159 (https://doi.o
rg/10.1126%2Fscience.160.3824.159). PMID 5642565 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/564
2565). S2CID 7239308 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:7239308).

References
Experiments, of the Advisory committee on Human Radiation (1996). Final report of the
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
ISBN 0-19-510792-6.
Barker, Holly M. (2004). Bravo for the Marshallese: regaining control in a post-nuclear, post-
colonial world. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson. ISBN 0-534-61326-8.
 Conard, R.A. Fallout: The experiences of a medical team in the care of a Marshallese
population accidentally exposed to fallout radiation (https://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.bibli
o.jsp?query_id=3&page=0&osti_id=10117645) Brookhaven National Laboratory report
#46444 (September 1992). A first-hand account of the long-term head of the U.S. survey
effort of the Marshallese people.

Report citations
This is a list of reports made under Project 4.1. This list is not exhaustive.

E.P. Cronkite, V.P. Bond, L.E. Browning, W.H. Chapman, S.H. Cohn, R.A. Conard, C.L.
Dunham, R.S. Farr, W.S. Hall, R. Sharp, N.R. Shulman, Study of Response of Human
Beings Accidentally Exposed to Significant Fallout Radiation, Operation CASTLE, Project
4.1, Naval Medical Research Institute, Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, Defense
Atomic Support Agency, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Report #WT-923 (October 1954).
Online at http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp2/2776_.pdf.
S.H. Cohn, R.W. Rinehart, J.K. Gong, J.S. Robertson, W.L. Milne, W.H. Chapman, V.P. Bond,
Nature and Extent of Internal Radioactive Contamination of Human Beings, Plants, and
Animals Exposed to Fallout, Operation CASTLE, Project 4.1, Naval Radiological Defense
Laboratory, Naval Medical Research Institute, Report #WT-936 (December 1955). Online at
http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp1d/6205e.pdf.
V.P. Bond, R.A. Conrad, J.S. Robertson, E.A. Weden, Medical Examination of Rongelap
People Six Months After Exposure to Fallout, Operation CASTLE, Project 4.1 Addendum,
Naval Medical Research Institute, Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, Report #WT-937
(April 1955). Online at http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp2/2774_.pdf.
R. Sharp, W.H. Chapman, Exposure of Marshall Islanders and American Military Personnel
to Fallout, Operation CASTLE, Project 4.1 Addendum, Naval Medical Research Institute,
Report #WT-938 EX (March 1957). Online at http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp2a/0283_a.pdf.
C.A. Sondhaus, V.P. Bond, Physical Factors and Dosimetry in the Marshall Island Radiation
Exposures, Operation CASTLE, Report on Addendum Report for Project 4.1 Naval
Radiological Defense Laboratory Report #WT-939 (December 1955). Online at
http://worf.eh.doe.gov/data/ihp1d/15187e.pdf.

External links
Department of Energy Marshall Islands Chronology (https://web.archive.org/web/200411021
35432/http://worf.eh.doe.gov/ihp/chron/) —fully referenced with links to PDFs of many
primary documents—indicates that Project 4.1 began after the Bravo test
The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE)Chapter 12: The
Marshallese (https://web.archive.org/web/20130218075903/http://www.hss.doe.gov/healthsa
fety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap12_3.html)
Republic of the Marshall Islands Embassy (https://web.archive.org/web/20160424042410/htt
p://www.rmiembassyus.org/Nuclear%20Issues.htm)—chronology indicates Project 4.1
began after the Bravo test
The Mayor of Rongelap discusses Project 4.1 (http://yokwe.net//modules.php?op=modload&
name=News&file=article&sid=721&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0), alleging it was pre-
meditated
Nuclear Savage (http://www.nuclearsavage.com/) A heartbreaking and intimate ethnographic
2011 documentary on Pacific Islanders struggling for dignity and survival after decades of
intentional radiation poisoning at the hands of the American government.
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