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BAD TASTE. Native people (left photo) of the Bikini Atoll in
the Marshal Islands, where joint Army-Navy bomb tests were held
in May 1946, carry their belongings down to the beach before
boarding a LST on March 13, 1946. The people were moved to a new
home on Rongerik Atoll, 109 miles away. In the right photo,
people are seen sitting in front of their new tent home on
Rongerik Atoll on March 14, 1946. (AP Photos/Clarence Hamm,
File)
From The Asian Reporter, V29, #16 (August 19, 2019),
page 7.
Beer named for Pacific island nuke test site
draws criticism
HAGATNA, Guam (AP) — A Texas-based company is facing
criticism for naming a beer after the location of nuclear tests
that resulted in the contamination of a Pacific island chain, a
report said.
Manhattan Project Beer Company is under scrutiny by Marshall
Islanders who were exposed to high levels of radiation by U.S.
government research from 1946 to 1958, The Pacific Daily News
reported.
The government and residents of the Republic of the Marshall
Islands have objected to the company’s beer named Bikini Atoll,
an area of the island chain that remains uninhabitable.
The name is insensitive to people still dealing with the
impacts of radiation decades later, islanders said.
The company has several beers with nuclear-themed names
including Half-life, Plutonium-239, Particles Collide, and 10
Nanoseconds.
"Our beer named Bikini Atoll was not created to mock or
trivialize the nuclear testing that took place in the Marshall
Islands," the company said in a social-media post. The company
is "creating awareness of the wider impacts and implications" of
U.S. nuclear research programs, the statement said.
The company’s website does not mention nuclear testing in a
description of Bikini Atoll beer.
Following what it described as "significant harassment and
death threats," the company said it will take no further action
or make additional statements.
Marshall Islands Health and Human Services Secretary Jack
Niedenthal wrote a letter to Manhattan Project Beer co-founder
Misty Sanford saying she should consider the suffering caused by
the nuclear testing.
"The bottom line is your product makes fun of a horrific
situation here in the Marshall Islands — a situation that I
promise you is still ongoing — to make money for your company,"
Niedenthal wrote. "This is unacceptable to us."
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