Letter to P H Abelson, Subject: Human Guinea Pigs at Oak Ridge, a Publication Which Did Not Reach the Standards of Accuracy and Technical Quality Expected and Deserved by Orau, Aaas Members

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For Information Only Post Office Box 117 Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37530 Executive A recent news report ("Human Guinea Pigs at Oak Ridge?," September 4th edition of Science) did not reach the standards of accuracy and technical quality expected and deserved by Oak Ridge Associated Universities, U S members, and others who read the publication. There were a number of inaccuracies, perhaps insignificant from a distance but very important to those who take their work, professional reputation, and standard of ethics very seriously at Oak Ridge. than list all points which concerned ORAU, for clarification we would like to emphasize several basic facts : 1. Patients were never "used as human guinea pigs" in the sense conveyed by the Mother Jones article; i.e., as unknowing victims of experiments for purposes other than their best interests. The Science headline with a question mark did a disservice to the compassionate doctors and staff who always put the needs of the the child exploited in the Mother Jones article,did ' 2- Rn ot receive igh levels of radiation " t o test man's tolerance of radiation in space,'' but in a last - ditch effort to save his life. Conventional chemotherapy and other treatments had failed. child was dying; his doctors concluded that the high levels of radiation were essentially the only chance t o extend his life. In fact, he lived 3.5 years after first entering our clinic with 3. It is true that patients did receive experimental treatments with total body ir radi tion and that 'some of the data was provided t o NASA--but as part of a retrospective study,not the treatment not given t o NASA atall.In fact, ORAU had completed there ort to NASA on high-level radiation i n 1967--the year before the &oy died. interest at NASA was i n low-level radiation. protocol. This study also ex mined 3000 patient records from LWe find no record o f doing so.

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4 . The Mother Jones article and Science seemed to indicate doubt that the child ' s parents were properly informed about the treatment. They were--both verbally an their informed consent. in explanations written inlay language Lne parents clearly gave owu 5 . Although ORAU acknowledges t h a t some program reviewers questioned the research value of some of the work of the clinic and the quality of the general facilities,the fact is that patient requirements always came before potential data, and good equipment was more important than high - quality buildings per se. We did the best we could within available government funds, including substantial contributions to the development of nuclear medicine over the The Science article quoted "a spokesman for the Medical Divison" (who incidentally is avery competent DOE information professional) ' as denying the thrust of the article, but challenging few of the facts. To deny the " thrust " is everything : ORAU's primary goal was always to help the patient and further the benefit of nuclear medicine, never t o experiment in order to learn "how much radiation astronauts could tolerate before ORAU is an operating contractor for the U. S . Department of Energy, formerly the Atomic Energy Commission; it is also a constituent member of MS. It is not a component of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.