ABCC and RERF

ABCC and RERF

The US, having decided to dominate the world with nuclear weapons, had been
compelled to study, from both offensive and defensive aspects, effects on the human
body of use of nuclear weapons, especially of the effects of initial radiation. On 26
November 1946, President Truman ordered establishment of a Commission on Atomic
Bomb Casualties (CAC) and the CAC decided to found Atomic Bomb Casualty
Commission (ABCC). After preparatory investigations the ABCC built permanent
institutions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1950 and began investigation of atomic bomb
survivors. In interviews investigating the experiences of survivors the ABCC made a
thorough examination of the exposed place (indoors or outdoors, thick or thin sheltered
house, etc.) and of the posture of the survivor at the instant of bombing in order to
estimate exposed dose from the initial radiation of the atomic bomb. On the other hand,
the ABCC did not inquire into the behavior of survivors after the explosion which was
necessary to estimate residual exposure for the survivor.
Due to the occupier’s closed manner of the ABCC and frequent change of American

expert staffs as well as bad feeling among citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
activities of the ABCC stagnated around 1955. Following the Francis Committee’s
recommendation based on the examination of ABCC activities, the ABCC restarted the
Adult Health Study (AHS) on about 20,000 survivors in 1958 and the Life Span Study
(LSS) on about 100,000 survivors in 1959. At long last in 1975 the ABCC was closed
and the RERF was started up, but the ABCC’s staff, institutions and projects were left to
continue under the RERF as well as intrinsic problems of the ABCC. The
epidemiological research in the RERF remains unchanged completely ignoring the
effects of residual radiation.