A Nation Betrayed: Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on Our Children and Other Innocent People (27 page)

Subject Selection

The selection of Alaskan Indians and Eskimos as subjects for this research was not arbitrary. The government felt that in order to better understand acclimatization and human performance under conditions of extreme cold, it was reasonable and potentially important to study people who lived under such conditions. At the same time however, the population chosen was not one familiar with modern medicine, but rather a population for whom the treatments of modern physicians were a strange but valued innovation; and the research activities of modern medicine were totally unknown. Therefore, the potential for misunderstanding and exploitation was significant. There has been no evidence that any attempt was made to explain the military purpose of the study to the Indians or Eskimos.

Oregon

Another segment of the population who was subject to government experimentation were prisoners. In 1963, Carl Heller was an internationally renowned medical scientist, a winner of the important Cuba Prize. In the field of endocrinology he was a preeminent researcher, so it is not surprising that when the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) decided to fund work on how radiation affects male reproductive function, they would turn to him. He designed a study to test the effects of radiation on the somatic and germinal cells of the testes, the doses of radiation that would produce changes or induce damage in spermatogenesis cells, the amount of time it would take for cell production to recover, and the effects of radiation on hormone excretion. Subjects were required to agree to be vasectomized, because of a perceived small risk of chromosomal damage that could lead to their fathering genetically damaged children. To carry out this work, Dr. Heller was to receive grants totaling $1.12 million over ten years.

Mavis Rowley, Dr. Heller’s former laboratory assistant who was interviewed by Advisory Committee staff in 1994, said that the AEC “was looking for a mechanism to measure the effect of ionizing radiation on the human body.” She said testicular irradiation was promising because the testes have “a cell cycle and physiology which allows you to make objective measurements of dosimetry and effect, without having to expose the whole body to radiation.” With respect to the health risks associated with the testicular irradiations, there was very little reliable “human “ information at the time about the long-term effects of organ-specific testicular exposure to radiation.”

In a deposition taken in 1976, a subject named John Henry Atkinson said he was never told there was a possibility of getting cancer or any kind of tumors as a result of the testicular irradiation experiments. Other subjects deposed in 1976 also said they had not been warned of cancer risk, and when asked by one subject about the potential for “bad effects,” Dr. Heller was reported to have said, “One chance in a million.”

Harold Bibeau was exposed to 18 rads’ and discovered lumps on his thigh and back.
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In a newspaper article in 1994, when asked why he subjected himself to experimentation Harold said, “I was just told that it was a way to serve my country even though I was in prison.”

When asked in his own deposition what the potential risks were Dr. Heller said, “Are you talking about cancer? ...I didn’t want to frighten them so I said tumor. I may have on occasion said cancer.”

The acute risks of the exposures included skin burns, pain from the biopsies, testicular inflammation (orchitis) induced by repeated biopsies, and bleeding into the scrotum from the biopsies. Using consent forms and depositions as a basis for determining what the subjects were told, it appears that they were adequately informed about the possibility of skin burns; sometimes informed, but perhaps inadequately, about the possibility of pain; informed about the possibility of bleeding only from 1970 on; and never informed of the possibility of orchitis. As far as the quality of consent is concerned, the evidence suggests that many if not most of the subjects might not have appreciated that some small risk of testicular cancer was involved. It is also not clear that all subjects understood that there could be significant pain associated with the biopsies and possible long-term effects.

Prison industry inmates were typically paid 25 cents a day for participating in the Heller program. They received $25 for each testicular biopsy, of which most inmates had five or more; plus a bonus when they were vasectomized at the end of the program, which appears to have been an additional $25. An obvious ethical question is whether the money constituted a coercive offer to prisoners. During the course of his study between 1963 and 1973, Dr. Heller irradiated sixty-seven inmates of the Oregon State Prison.

Washington

C. Alvin Paulsen was a student of Carl Heller at the University of Oregon in the late 1940s. In the early 1950s, he was a fellow in Heller’s lab. By 1963, he was ready to direct a substantial research program on his own. His chance came when he was called to Hanford to consult on an accidental radiation exposure of three workers. The upshot of this experience was a $505,000 grant from the Atomic Energy Commission to study the effects of ionizing radiation on testicular function.

Dr. Paulsen remarked in the 1994 interview with Advisory Committee staff, that the main research questions he was trying to answer were what would constitute “a reasonably safe dose” of ionizing radiation to the testes; as well as what dose “would cause some change in sperm production and secondly, to determine the scenario of recovery.” He recalled a 1962 letter to the Washington State Department of Institutions in which he wrote that he would like to find out “the maximum dose of radiation that would not alter spermatogenesis” and “the maximum dose of radiation that affects spermatogenesis, but only temporarily.”

In the 1994 interview Dr. Paulsen said, “When I recognized a tremendous void of information relative to human exposure and space travel had started; and there was the question of solar explosions and ionizing radiation exposure in space...I then contacted the Commission to determine...whether they would entertain receiving an application.” At a certain stage of the Washington study, Dr. Paulsen used the prison bulletin board to advertise for volunteers. The November 1964, announcements to inmates failed to mention a requirement to undergo a vasectomy at the end of the experiment, to ensure that subjects would not father genetically damaged children.

In mid-1969, Dr. Audrey R. Holliday, chief of research, undertook a review of all experimentation in the prison system for the Department of Institutions. At this time Dr. Holliday took steps to temporarily halt the irradiation phase of the project. After investigating the origins of Dr. Paulsen’s research, Dr. Holliday asked the University of Washington to conduct a new review of the study, emphasizing her concern about the state’s responsibility to safeguard human rights. The university stood by its initial findings allowing the research to continue, although at about the same time it turned down Dr. Paulsen’s request to move into the neutron-irradiation phase of his project.

Dr. Holliday then debated the issue with Dr. William Conte, director of the Department of Institutions who was disposed to allow the project to continue. On March 18, 1970, she wrote a letter to Dr. Conte noting, “There is no question, but what the Federal Government has made considerable investment in this project. The Federal Government, however, as a reading of any newspaper will show; has supported a number of projects over which there have been many moral-ethical questions (both large and small) raised, e.g., nerve gasses, toxins, etc. I remind you that the Federal Government is not responsible for the care, safety and safeguarding of human rights of populations under the purview of the Department of Institutions. This is a responsibility we must discharge, regardless of the amount of money that the Federal Government is willing to invest in a project... There is no doubt but what the prison setting is an ideal setting for this type of research... I suppose concentration camps provided ideal settings for the research conducted in them... If in fact, non-inmates were to volunteer in the substantial numbers of persons Dr. Paulsen needs, then I would have less qualms about offering up a captive population for this research, i.e., I would have some evidence, assuming the volunteers were in fact, normal; that non-captive populations might make the same decision as a captive population... I am not against high-risk research. I have engaged in some myself. I am not against federally sponsored research. I have engaged in some myself. However, the risk should be commensurate with the probable benefits to be received by the population or others like it to follow. I don’t think we can argue that in this case. Neither am I opposed to use of a prison population on a volunteer basis for research projects that may not be of direct benefit to the population, but which are of clear benefit to society or mankind. I don’t think we can argue that in this case either.”

Dr. Holliday also argued that the study should have been done on “lower order primates,” and that if the state allowed Dr. Paulsen’s study to continue; it would forfeit its right to speak out on behalf of human rights relating to future research proposals.

While favoring continuation of Dr. Paulsen’s research, Dr. Conte authorized a review by the Department of Institution’s Human Rights Review Committee. The committee recommended that the study be shut down; noting that the Paulsen project “seems clearly inconsistent with the standards laid down by the Nuremberg Code for the protection of human subjects with respect to freedom of choice and consent.” The recommendation went on to say that “within the context of Dr. Paulsen’s project, it is largely irrelevant whether or not a volunteer declares his ‘desire to undergo vasectomy,’ since there is no assurance that his real reasons would be ethically-morally acceptable; or that his reasons (whatever they may be) will stand the test of reality after release.” It specified that the money paid for participation and the expectation of privileges, “real or imagined,” could constitute undue inducements. This review, according to the report, “recommended that Dr. Paulsen’s request for continuation of his study be rejected as it was found to be inconsistent with standards for the protection of the individual as a research subject. The essential issue raised by departmental personnel was that of informed consent.” On March 23, 1970, Dr. Holliday wrote to Dr. Paulsen to inform him that his project was over.

While the other intentional releases addressed in the Committee’s charter were part of the effort to develop the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the Green Run was conducted to develop intelligence techniques to understand the threat posed by the Soviet Union. In 1947, General Dwight D. Eisenhower assigned the Air Force the mission of long-range detection of Soviet nuclear tests. Based on observations from Operation Fitzwilliam, the intelligence component of the 1948 Sandstone nuclear test series, the Air Force determined aerial sampling of radioactive debris to be the best method of detecting atomic releases. An interim aerial sampling network was in place in early September 1949 that detected radioactive debris from the first Soviet nuclear test.

Around the same time, Jack Healy of Hanford’s Health Instrument (HI) Divisions noticed anomalous radioactivity readings from an air filter on nearby Rattlesnake Mountain. The HI Divisions were responsible for radiological safety and Healy had set up this filter to test how radioactive contamination varied with altitude. The rapid decay of his radioactive samples led Healy to conclude that they had come from a recent nuclear test. Soon after news of Healy’s observation reached Washington, D.C., Air Force specialists arrived and took Healy’s samples and data for analysis. It is not clear whether Healy’s observation came in time to support President Harry Truman’s announcement on September 23 that the Soviet Union had exploded its first atomic bomb, but it did confirm that radioactivity from a nuclear test could be detected on the other side of the globe.

Now that the Soviet Union knew how to make atomic weapons, the United States needed to know how many weapons and how much of the critical raw material plutonium the Soviets possessed. Like nuclear testing, plutonium production released radioactive gases that sensitive instruments could detect, though not at such great distances. To identify Soviet production facilities and estimate their rate of plutonium production, the Air Force now felt the need to test ways to monitor these gases.

Hanford: The World’s First Plutonium Factory

In 1942 General Leslie Groves selected the Hanford site, overlooking the Columbia River in southeast Washington State, for the Manhattan Project’s plutonium factory. The river would provide a large reliable supply of fresh water for cooling the plutonium-production reactors, and Hanford’s relative isolation from major population centers would make it easier to construct and operate the facility without attracting unwanted attention. The nearby towns of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, soon became boomtowns whose economies depended on Hanford.

At Hanford neutrons converted uranium 238 in the production reactor’s nuclear fuel into plutonium 239. Chemical separation plants then separated this plutonium from the fission products and residual uranium in the
irradiated fuel elements. The first separation plants, the T and P plants, used acid to dissolve these fuel elements, but the more efficient Redox and Purex processes superseded this in the 1950s.