Radiation Tests Involved At Least 23,000
WASHINGTON - Radiation experiments sponsored by the federal government were conducted on more than 23,000 Americans in about 1,400 different projects in the 30 years after World War II, according to a federal panel's report released yesterday.
The figures suggest that the deliberate exposure of humans to radiation during the Cold War was far more widespread than previously believed.
The panel, appointed by the Clinton administration to investigate the experiments, has also found that discussions about the ethical implications of radiation tests took place as early as 1953, and involved senior officials, including the secretary of defense.
The panel has fully documented 400 government-backed biomedical experiments involving human exposure to radiation conducted between 1944 and 1975, and has received materials describing 1,000 other tests over the same period, the report said.
A 1986 congressional probe of federal radiation tests, commissioned by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and until now considered the most authoritative account of radiation experiments, discussed only 31 separate experiments. In June, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary revealed information about 48 additional experiments.
According to the picture painted in the panel's report and in an interview with the panel's chairwoman, government researchers carried out projects exposing thousands of U.S. military personnel and civilians to radioactive substances, in spite of ethical concerns that were raised in high-level government discussions.
"This suggests that experimentation was a much bigger deal than anyone knew," said Daryl Kimball, associate director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "And that is going to make the panel's work all that much harder."
Cold War researchers conducted several hundred so-called intentional releases, in which radioactive substances were emitted into the environment, usually to test human responses and often without the knowledge of those exposed, the panel's report said.
Federal officials had previously acknowledged overseeing only 13 such releases, including the controversial 1949 Green Run incident from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in which significant amounts of radioactive iodine were emitted in Eastern Washington and drifted downwind, exposing people in surrounding communities.
While the Markey commission identified only 700 participants in federally sponsored radiation studies, at least 23,000 people now have been identified as taking part in the tests sponsored by the forerunners of the Health and Human Services Department, the Veterans Affairs Department and other departments, according to Ruth Faden, a Johns Hopkins University ethicist who chairs the panel.
That figure does not include those involved in tests sponsored by the Department of Defense or the Department of Energy, Faden said. She added that "probably many thousands" of participants will be added to the total after individuals who participated in tests conducted by those departments are counted, she said.
Faden also said that some of the experiments provided the participants with medical benefits but added that the number who benefited is not yet known.
Earlier this year, after O'Leary and the Albuquerque Tribune newspaper brought the extensive use of humans in federal radiation tests to national attention, President Clinton appointed an interagency task force to explore the implications of the issue. The task force in turn appointed the panel. Officially called the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, it is composed of 14 ethicists, medical researchers and legal experts.
Among the material already reviewed by the panel are documents suggesting that discussions took place about the radiation experiments among senior officials in the Truman administration. In 1953, then-Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson and the secretaries of the Army and Navy were involved in the discussion, according to documents in the panel's files.
"Until now, we were under the impression that debate about the issue only took place among lower-level officials and laboratory researchers," Faden said.
Despite the discussions, which touched on such questions as informed consent and how much patients should be told about the tests, there are indications that the reservations of senior officials about the radiation issue were not relayed to researchers who conducted the tests.
Over the next six months, Faden said, the panel will address key questions about the experiments, such as the extent to which researchers gained the consent of participants, how participants were chosen and whether participants should be compensated for damages they suffered. The panel's final report is due in April.
Previous press reports have documented some of the radiation studies in the Northwest.
Scientists in charge of 10 Hanford-related experiments between 1951 and 1975 also maintain the studies were conducted ethically. The studies were intended to find out how radioactive isotopes are distributed and absorbed throughout the body.
Northwest-area studies related to Hanford included six by the University of Washington, three by Hanford contractors and one by the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation in Seattle. Records say all the subjects in the experiments were volunteers who signed consent forms.
UW scientists say one experiment helped lead to a treatment for osteoporosis, the bone-wasting disease affecting millions of women. Another helped find a blood preservative. Still another examined air pollution's effects on breathing.
In one experiment in the 1960s, the testicles of 64 inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary were bombarded with radiation. The UW Medical School professor who recruited the inmates said he was doing a study of radiation's effect on male fertility. The program ended in 1971.
Also, Walla Walla and Oregon inmates were X-rayed in studies to learn more about radiation risks to nuclear workers and astronauts.