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Documents re-leased Monday reveal more Cold War radiation experiments
that targeted government workers - and planned to allow some to suffer
or die to further research. And new reports question safeguards
against such research today.
Documents released by President Clinton's Advisory Committee on Human
Radiation Experiments - which by presidential order is also studying
radiation field tests in Utah - show:
- Some workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M., who received
"excessive exposures" to radiation were studied for years and shown
to have abnormal white blood cell counts. It is unclear whether they ere told. And the government feared revealing findings would lead to
lawsuits.
- A proposed study at a uranium processing plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn.,
sought to collect tissue from workers - including extracted teeth from
the living, and bones of the dead - to test effects of chronic
exposure to uranium. It sought to validate expected radiation effects
on humans predicted by animal studies.
- A proposed (but apparently canceled) study at the Nevada Test Site
sought to move soldiers progressively closer to atomic blasts to
determine the exact threshold of immediate injury from them. Critics
who pushed to cancel it said the threshold "cannot be determined
without eventually exceeding it."
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the commission it has
no one with security clearances to review environmental studies for
any proposed secret government field tests today. Of course, such
tests spread radiation in Utah in the 1950s.
The Los Alamos studies involved chemists who prepared
ra-dio-lan-tha-num for release in nearby Bayo Canyon. As early as
August 1946, safety officials realized the chemists were receiving
excessive exposures to gamma radiation.
What changes were made to better protect workers is unclear, but those
who had the excessive exposures were studied at least through 1954 in
a series of blood tests - which showed they had abnormal white blood
cell counts.
A 1948 memo from the chief of the Atomic Energy Commission's Insurance
Branch said, "The results of the studies indicate that the tolerance
levels for chronic exposure to gamma radiation which have been
accepted both within the AEC and elsewhere may be too high."
But he said making that known could have "a shattering effect" on
worker morale, "would add substance to demands for extra-hazardous
pay," and "might increase the number of claims of occupational
injury" - and therefore urged close study of whether to release
information about the findings.
Later follow-up reports, originally classified as secret, showed the
chemists continued to have abnormal white blood cell counts for years,
but it is unclear whether they were ever told - and presidential
commission staff said they are uncertain how significant the blood
changes were.
A 1954 memo from AEC health physicist Gordon M. Dunning said, "The
changes in counts are actual and not imaginary. It is our belief,
however, that they don't mean anything; if they do mean anything, we
don't know what it is."
About the Oak Ridge study, a June 1949 memo said that despite efforts
to protect workers against Uranium-234 exposure, "it was definitely
established that some uranium is absorbed in spite of precautions to
prevent it."
The memo noted that it presented "an opportunity to secure the type
of medical information required by the physician to interpret, in
terms of human experience, the toxicological findings of small animal
research."
The memo proposed that arrangements be made "with various hospital
and dental clinics in the vicinity so that when these employees have
an appendix removed, a tooth extracted, or some similar medical
service performed, these tissue samples will be available for
analysis."
It added that if workers die, "Arrangements should be made to secure
samples of hard tissue, i.e., rib, sternum, vertebra and femur on post
mortem examinations."
The proposed study at the Nevada Test Site sought to progressively
move volunteers in foxholes and others prone on the ground closer and
closer to atomic explosions "until thresholds of intolerability are
ascertained."
It was apparently vetoed by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Proj-ect
saying "the injury threshold cannot be determined without eventually
exceeding it." It preferred to conduct laboratory research instead.
It added, "The long-range effect on the human system of sublethal
does of radiation is an unclear field." It said such exposure could
bring complaints and "unfavorable public opinion in the event that
deaths and incapacitations occur with the passage of time."
Previous documents had shown the government did perform other
experiments with soldiers near atomic blasts, and Congress years ago
apologized and agreed to pay them $75,000 in compensation.
The presidential commission also is seeking to determine what
safeguards exist against radiation experiments today - such as at
least 74 open-air releases by radiological weapons at Dugway Proving
Ground in Utah in the 1940s and '50s.
While environmental laws are much more strict now, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency told the commission it has no one with
security clearances who could review environmental impact state-ments
for secret military tests today.
A memo by the commission staff said, "Although it is possible that
the EIS for a `black' program could be classified at a lower level,
the lack of suitably cleared personnel raises serious questions about
EPA's ability to review such programs."
It noted that the EPA has no record of ever reviewing any classified
environmental studies. It also said it did not review work at a highly
classified Air Force base near Groom Lake, Nev., where recent lawsuits
have alleged burning of toxic materials and lack of required
environmental oversight.
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