The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was established in 1994 to investigate questions of the record of the United States government with respect to human radiation experiments. The special committee was created by
President
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*President (government title)
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Automobiles
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Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
in
Executive Order
In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...
12891, issued January 15, 1994.
Ruth Faden
Ruth R. Faden is an American scientist, academic, and founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute's Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director from 2014 to 2016. Fa ...
of The
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an interdisciplinary center serving the entire Johns Hopkins University and Health System. It is dedicated to the study of complex moral and policy issues in ...
chaired the committee.
The thousand-page final report of the Committee was released in October 1995 at a
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
ceremony.
[Moreno, p. XI]
Background
The scandal first came to public attention in a newsletter called ''Science Trends'' in 1976 and in ''
Mother Jones
Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...
'' magazine in 1981. ''Mother Jones'' reporter Howard Rosenburg used the
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* Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act
* ...
to gather hundreds of documents to investigate total radiation studies which were done at the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies (now the
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is a U.S. Department of Energy asset providing expertise in STEM workforce development, scientific and technical reviews, and the evaluation of radiation exposure and environmental contamin ...
). The ''Mother Jones'' article triggered a hearing before the
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the
House Science and Technology Committee
The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is a standing committee, committee of the United States House of Representatives. It has jurisdiction over non-defense federal scientific research and development. More specifically, the committee h ...
. Congressman
Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...
of Tennessee chaired the hearing. Gore's subcommittee report stated that the radiation experiments were "satisfactory, but not perfect."
[ p. 410, 412, 544, "Plutonium Experiment" Science Trends, February 23, 1976, p. 128; Howard Rosenburg, Informed Consent, ''Mother Jones'', September–October 1981, p. 21-44][
1981 Hearings on the Human Total Body Irradiation Program at Oak Ridge before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Science and Technology Committee, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (Sept. 23, 1981) (commonly referred to as the "Gore Hearing").
]
In November 1986, a report by the staff of Massachusetts Congressman
Ed Markey
Edward John Markey (born July 11, 1946) is an American lawyer, politician, and former Army reservist who has served as the junior United States senator from Massachusetts since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representati ...
was released, but received only cursory media coverage. Entitled "American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three decades of radiation experiments on U.S. citizens", the report stated that there had been 31 human radiation experiments involving nearly 700 people. Markey urged the Department of Energy to make every effort to find the experimental subjects and compensate them for damages, which did not occur. DOE officials knew who had conducted the experiments, and the names of some of the subjects. After the report was released, President
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
and Vice-President
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
resisted opening investigations of the radiation experiments.
[Welsome p. 414-415, 544][Moreno, p. X]
The Markey report found that between 1945 and 1947 eighteen hospital patients were injected with
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
. The doctors selected patients likely to die in the near future. Despite the doctors' prognoses, several lived for decades after.
[ p. 525] Ebb Cade was an unwilling participant in medical experiments that involved injection of 4.7 micrograms of
Plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
on 10 April 1945 at
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...
. This experiment was under the supervision of
Harold Hodge.
[AEC no. UR-38, 1948 Quarterly Technical Report]
The Markey report stated: "Although these experiments did provide information on the retention and absorption of radioactive material by the human body, the experiments are nonetheless repugnant because human subjects were essentially used as guinea pigs and calibration devices."
Investigative report
Triggering the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was a series of
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
winning investigative reports by
Eileen Welsome
Eileen Welsome (born March 12, 1951) is an American journalist and author. She received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1994 while a reporter for ''The Albuquerque Tribune'' for a 3-part story titled "The Plutonium Experiment" published ...
in ''
The Albuquerque Tribune
''The Albuquerque Tribune'' was an afternoon newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, founded in 1922 by Carlton Cole Magee as ''Magee's Independent''. It was published in the afternoon and evening Monday through Saturday.
Scott Ware served as ed ...
'',
[Moreno, p. IX, XI] entitled ''The Plutonium Experiment'', published as a series starting on November 15, 1993. This report was different than Markey's, because Welsome revealed the names of the people injected with plutonium.
Welsome originally discovered the experiments while sifting through some documents at
Kirtland Air Force Base
Kirtland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in the southeast quadrant of the Albuquerque, New Mexico urban area, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport. The base was named for the early Army aviator Col. Roy ...
in Albuquerque in the spring of 1987. What got her curiosity was a report on radioactive animal carcasses. The report identified the victims only by code names.
After receiving the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for her article, Welsome would go on to publish much more information in 1999 in a book titled ''
The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War''.
See also
*
Albert Stevens
Albert Stevens (1887–1966), also known as patient CAL-1 and most radioactive human ever, was a house painter from Ohio who was subjected to an involuntary human radiation experiment and survived the highest known accumulated radiation dose in ...
*
Human experimentation in the United States
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, a ...
*
Human radiation experiments
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.
Ex ...
*
Ruth Faden
Ruth R. Faden is an American scientist, academic, and founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute's Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director from 2014 to 2016. Fa ...
*
Experimentation on prisoners
Throughout history, prisoners have been frequent participants in scientific, medical and social human subject research. Some of the research involving prisoners has been exploitative and cruel. Many of the modern protections for human subjects ev ...
*
Harold Hodge
*
James M. Gates Jr.
Notes
{{reflist
External links
Chair's Perspective on the Work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experimentsby
Ruth Faden
Ruth R. Faden is an American scientist, academic, and founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute's Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director from 2014 to 2016. Fa ...
Material at George Washington UniversityMaterial from the
National Security Archive
The National Security Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located on the campus of the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985 to check rising government secrecy. The Nat ...
.
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments - Final ReportFinal Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experimentson
LibriVox
LibriVox is a group of worldwide volunteers who read and record public domain texts, creating free public domain audiobooks for download from their website and other digital library hosting sites on the internet. It was founded in 2005 by Hugh Mc ...
(public domain audiobooks)
American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens
Radiation health effects research
Nuclear history of the United States
United States federal boards, commissions, and committees
Human subject research in the United States
United States Atomic Energy Commission