Human radiation experiments
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Since the discovery of ionizing radiation, a number of human radiation experiments have been performed to understand the effects of ionizing radiation and radioactive contamination on the human body, specifically with the element plutonium.
Experiments performed in the United States
Numerous human radiation experiments have been performed in the United States, many of which were funded by various U.S. government agencies[3] such as the United States Department of Defense, the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and the United States Public Health Service. Also involved were several universities, most notably Vanderbilt University involved in several of them. The experiments included:
- directly injecting plutonium and other radioactive elements to mostly terminal patients without their consent
- feeding radioactive traces to children[4]
- enlisting doctors to administer radioactive iron to impoverished pregnant women[5]
- exposing U.S. soldiers and prisoners to high levels of radiation[4]
- irradiating the birth defects[4]
- exhuming bodies from graveyards to test them for radiation (without the consent of the families of the deceased)[6]
On January 15, 1994, President
These records made clear that since the 1940s, the Atomic Energy Commission had been sponsoring tests on the effects of radiation on the human body. American citizens who had checked into hospitals for a variety of ailments were secretly injected, without their knowledge, with varying amounts of plutonium and other radioactive materials.
Ebb Cade was an unwilling participant in medical experiments that involved injection of 4.7 micrograms of plutonium on 10 April 1945 at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.[9][10] This experiment was under the supervision of Harold Hodge.[11] Most patients thought it was "just another injection," but the secret studies left enough radioactive material in many of the patients' bodies to induce life-threatening conditions.
Such experiments were not limited to hospital patients, but included other populations such as those set out above, e.g., orphans fed irradiated milk, children injected with radioactive materials, and prisoners in Washington and Oregon state prisons. Much of the experimentation was carried out in order to assess how the human body metabolizes radioactive materials, information that could be used by the Departments of Energy and Defense in Cold War defense and attack planning.
ACHRE's final report was also a factor in the Department of Energy establishing an Office of Human Radiation Experiments (OHRE) that assured publication of DOE's involvement, by way of its predecessor, the AEC, in Cold War radiation research and experimentation on human subjects. The final report issued by the ACHRE can be found at the Department of Energy's website.
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See also
- Unethical human experimentation in the United States
- Project SUNSHINE
- Nuclear and radiation accidents
- Radiation poisoning
- Radioactive contamination
- Human experimentation
- Totskoye range nuclear tests
- Walter E. Fernald State School
- James M. Gates Jr.
Notes and references
- ^ Moss, William; Eckhardt, Roger (1995). "The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments" (PDF). Los Alamos Science. Radiation Protection and the Human Radiation Experiments (23): 177–223. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
- ^ "The Media & Me: [The Radiation Story No One Would Touch]", Geoffrey Sea, Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 1994.
- ^ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power. American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on US. Citizens. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
- ^ ISBN 0-385-31402-7
- ^ U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee. Craft v. Vanderbilt University. Fed Suppl. 1998;18:786-98. PMID 15751149.
- ^ Roff, Sue Rabbitt. "Project Sunshine and the Slippery Slope" (PDF). Dundee University Medical School.
- ^ "Ruth R. Faden, PHD, MPH".
- ^ ACHRE homepage, archived
- ^ Moss, William, and Roger Eckhardt. (1995). "The human plutonium injection experiments." Los Alamos Science. 23: 177-233.
- ^ Openness, DOE. (June 1998). Human Radiation Experiments: ACHRE Report. Chapter 5: The Manhattan district Experiments; the first injection. Washington, DC. Superintendent of Documents US Government Printing Office.
- ^ AEC no. UR-38, 1948 Quarterly Technical Report
- ^ Федоров, Юрий. "Живущие в стеклянном доме". Радио Свобода (in Russian). Retrieved 2015-08-31.
- ^ "Slow Death In Kazakhstan's Land Of Nuclear Tests". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 2011-08-29. Retrieved 2015-08-31.
- ^ Skoog, Kim. "U.S. NUCLEAR TESTING ON THE MARSHALL ISLANDS: 1946 TO 1958" (PDF). University of Guam. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ^ "Research in the rainforest".
- ^ "Ethical Issues Raised by Patrick Tierney's Darkness in El Dorado".
Further reading
- Killing Our Own: The disaster of America's experience with atomic radiation, by Harvey Wasserman, Delacorte Press, c1992, ISBN 978-0-440-04567-0
- The Treatment: The Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests, by Martha Stephens, ISBN 0-8223-2811-9
- Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World, by Holly M. Barker, Wadsworth, 2004. ISBN 0-534-61326-8
- Chair's Perspective on the Work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments by Ruth Faden
External links
- PROJECT SUNSHINE AND THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
- The nuclear bodysnatchers
- Grave injustices
- "A Little of the Buchenwald Touch": America's Secret Radiation Experiments
- Cheryl Welsh, Outlaw nonconsensual human experiments now The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 16, 2009.
- Embassy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands