Collateral Damage

Part of the Series: Unnatural Causes

Two billion people worldwide are infected with the TB bacillus, but only 9 million people a year actually get the disease. The story of the Marshall Islands can help us understand why.

The lives and health of Marshall Islanders in the equatorial Pacific were disrupted in a unique fashion when the United States occupied their nation and used their outer islands for extensive nuclear testing after World War II. Between 1946 and 1958, 67 atomic devices were detonated - the estimated yield equivalent to 1.7 Hiroshima blasts every day for 12 years.

The health problems that Marshallese people experience today are the price they've paid to help the U.S. maintain a strategic military presence in the Pacific. Our relationship with the Marshall Islands has shaped much of its fate over the past 60 years; it can also help improve their prospects for life and better health in the future.