Project 4.1

http://www.uvu.edu/ethics/seac/US%20Nuclear%20Testing%20on%20the%20Marshal%20Islands.pdf

After watch the documentary "Nuclear Savage" I came across a case study about  "Project 4.1" which was a medical study conducted by the US to see the effects of the radiation of the people from the Marshall Islands. Also includes how the US government tries to deny the radioactive poisoning that affected the residents of the islands.  At the end of WWII the Marshall Islands were made part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under the jurisdiction of the United States (Skoog, 68). Some of the testings of the nuclear bombs were around 7000 times greater than the atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan in WWII. The most famous nuclear bomb "Bravo" detonated on Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954 which then 48 hours later the residents of Rongelap were forced to evacuate their land due to a snow storm of gritty white ash. Project 4.1 began after the "Bravo" testing, "the study of the response of human beginnings exposed to significant beta and gamma radiation due to the fallout from high-yield weapons." The radiation of the nuclear testings affected the four main islands also includes the contamination of food, animals, plants, and human beings. This study was kept as secret restrictive data due to the anticipated negative public reaction and was revealed in 1994.  Project 4.1 crossed many ethical issues which the US tries to cover up. This is just an example of how the US government acted irresponsibly in its role of the health and welfare of people living in harms way of the atomic blasts. The US government of course denied the responsibility of the radiation poisoning that continued to kill and maim people after the initial blast of the atomic bomb.  So far no other areas in Micronesia have been compensated for the nuclear contamination other than select populations on the Marshall Island. Clearly this is another example of how the US government has not lived up to its financial obligation of the people of the affected atolls.