Deseret News
Wednesday, January 26, 1994

BENNETT SEEKS PROBE OF CHEMICAL TESTS
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By Lee Davidson, Washington Correspondent

As the Clinton administration examines use of human guinea pigs in radiation experiments, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, asked it to also better disclose and study what it did to Utahns in chemical and germ-warfare experiments.

That came during a Senate Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday where Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary disclosed that the government is still sponsoring more than 200 radiation experiments involving human subjects - but said none are done in secret or without informed consent.

Bennett, a committee member, told O'Leary, "The Army always said its nerve-gas problems in Utah were restricted as far as the government is concerned to sheep and gave assurances that humans were not affected. Utahns find that hollow" - especially after false assurances that nuclear bomb tests also would not hurt them.

He added, "Other things besides radiation need to be looked at."

Of note, a Deseret News probe last year showed residents near a 1968 nerve-gas accident in Skull Valley that killed 6,000 sheep likely have suffered side-effect illnesses for years despite Army claims that they were not affected.

Residents showed nervous-system sickness similar to symptoms reported by people exposed to small amounts of nerve gas in labratory experiments.

Also of note, President Clinton has already ordered committees looking into radiation experiments to study six tests at Utah's Dugway Proving Ground in the 1940s and 1950s that dropped cluster bombs filled with radioactive particles in the Utah desert.

O'Leary also told the committee Tuesday that the Energy Department is involved with between 200 and 260 radiation experiments involving humans, most of them involving low tracer doses for nuclear medicine research.

She said she is confident all such research conforms to modern disclosure and ethical guidelines. But she said that as a precaution, Clinton will issue an order later this week halting any secret or classified experiments - but she doubts that any exist.

O'Leary started the current concern over radiation experiments when she revealed the government had conducted many more nuclear bomb tests than it had announced and confirmed other radiation experiments had exposed many people without their knowledge.