TOKYO REPORT: Medical Data Found for Fishermen Victims of H-Bomb Test

Tokyo, Aug. 9 (Jiji Press)--Recently discovered copies of medical records for 16 crew members of a Japanese fishing boat contaminated by nuclear fallout from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in the mid-1950s could be used to improve treatment for radiation exposure, medical experts say, urging the government to preserve them.

The Fukuryu Maru No. 5 encountered fallout from the U.S. Castle
Bravo nuclear test on the Bikini Atoll, near the Marshall Islands, on March
1, 1954. All 23 fishermen aboard were contaminated.
After returning to Japan about two weeks later, they were admitted
to two Tokyo hospitals. Seven stayed at the University of Tokyo Hospital and
16 at a state-run hospital now called the National Center for Global Health
and Medicine, or NCGM.
Once the fishermen were discharged from the two hospitals, the
National Institute of Radiological Sciences, or NIRS, in the city of Chiba,
which was established in 1957, took over their treatment.
The retirement of the doctors involved made it imperative to secure
medical records on the fishermen immediately after exposure to radiation.
Makoto Akashi, head of the Research Center for Radiation Emergency
Medicine at the NIRS, and others began searching for the records and
discovered those for the 16 fishermen at the NCGM. Copies were made in the
mid-1990s, but their existence at the NIRS has only recently been confirmed.
Medical records on the other seven fishermen have yet to be found.
The 16 included chief radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama, who died at
40 about six months after his exposure to radiation, becoming the first
victim of a hydrogen bomb in the world. Fourteen of the 23 fishermen have so
far died of cancer and other diseases, although nine remain alive.
The records show the condition of the 16 fishermen in detail,
including changes in temperature, hepatic functions and the number of white
blood cells, according to Akashi.
The Japanese government attributed Kuboyama's death to radiation as
a result of his exposure to nuclear fallout, but the U.S. government
maintained that he died of hepatitis following a blood transfusion.
The doctors who treated the 16 fishermen regarded them as suffering
from radiation injuries, according to the medical records.
As cases of radiation injuries are limited in number, Akashi
stresses, "Data on the treatment of such injuries must be preserved as
medical information."
"If asked by medical institutions treating people suffering from
the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we will study how best
to utilize the newly found records while also addressing the question of
privacy," Akashi adds.
"Since the records may reveal new medical facts, they should be
permanently preserved by the government, as is the case for data on the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," says Hajime Kikima, a
65-year-old doctor well versed in the treatment of patients for radiation
exposure.