Final report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.

  • United States. Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments
Date:
1996
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Final report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ployees and others who could suffer from “its negligence or ignorance” and to the scientific world, with which it was obliged to “share its acquisitions ... whenever security considerations permit.”°° In the fall of 1947, as recommended by the Medical Board of Review, the AEC cre- ated a Division of Biology and Medicine (DBM) to coordinate biomedical research involving atomic energy and an Advisory Committee for Biology and Medicine (ACBM), which reported directly to the AEC’s chairman.*° Not surprisingly, the DBM and ACBM be- came gathering places for the luminaries of ra- diation science. The ACBM was headed by a Rockefeller Foundation official, Dr. Alan Gregg. It settled on Dr. Shields Warren, a Harvard- trained pathologist, to serve as the first chief of the DBM. Warren, as we shall see, would play a central role in developments related to radiation research and human experimentation. In the 1930s, focusing on cancer research, and influ- enced by the work of Hevesy and the pioneer- ing radioisotope work being done in Berkeley and Boston, Warren turned to the question of the effects of radiation on animals and the treat- ment of acute leukemia, the “most hopeless . . . of tumors at that time.” As the war neared, Warren enlisted in the Naval Reserve. He con- tinued medical work for the Navy, turning down an invitation to join Stafford Warren (no rela- tion) on “a project... that he couldn't tell me anything about [the Manhattan Project].”9’ While most of the AEC’s budget would be devoted to highly secret weapons development and related activities, the biomedical research program represented the commission’s proud public face. Even before the AEC opened its doors, Manhattan Project officials and experts had laid the groundwork for a bold program to encourage the use of radioisotopes for scientific research, especially in medicine. This program was first presented to the broad public in a Sep- tember 1946 article in the New York Times Magazine. The article began dramatically by describing the use of “radioactive salt” to mea- sure circulation in a crushed leg, so that a deci- sion on whether to amputate below or above the knee could be made.?8 By November 1946, the isotope distribution program was well under way, with more than 200 requests approved, about half of which were designated for “human uses.” From the begin- ning, the AEC’s Isotope Division at Oak Ridge had in its program director, Paul Aebersold, a veritable Johnny Appleseed for radioelements.*” In presentations before the public and to re- searchers, Aebersold, dubbed “Mr. Isotope,” touted the simplicity and low cost with which scientists would be provided with radioisotopes: “The materials and services are made available ... with a minimum of red tape and under con- ditions which encourage their use.”4° At an inter- national cancer conference in St. Louis in 1947, the AEC announced that it would make radio- isotopes available without cost for cancer re- search and experimental cancer treatment. This, Shields Warren later recalled, had a “tremendous effect” and “led to a revolution in the type of work done in this field.”4! To AEC administrators, Aebersold empha- sized the benefits to the AEC’s public image: “Much of the Commission’s success is judged by the public and scientists . . . on its willingness to carry out a wide and liberal policy on the dis- tribution of materials, information, and ser- vices,’ he wrote in a memo to the AEC’s gen- eral manager.” The AEC biomedical program as a whole also provided for funding of cancer research centers, research equipment, and numerous other re- search projects. Here, too, were advances that would save many lives. Before the war, radio- therapy had reached a plateau, limited by the cost of radium and the inability of the machines of the time to focus radiation precisely on tu- mors to the exclusion of surrounding healthy tissue. AEC facilities inherited from the Man- hattan Project could produce radioactive cobalt, a cheaper substitute for radium. As well, the AEC’s “teletherapy” program funded the devel- opment of new equipment capable of produc- ing precisely focused high-energy beams.*? The AEC’s highly publicized peacetime medi- cal program was not immune to the pressures of the Cold War political climate. Even the lives of young researchers in the AEC Fellowship Program conducting nonclassified research were subject to Federal Bureau of Investigation review despite protests from commission members. Congressionally mandated Cold War require-