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1 :The ethics of human edid msembrs conducted radiation e2tpeI-iM men& on humans with funding from the Atomic. p;netgg mion an$ tbe Department of Energy, .acumiing to documents made public this week, This isn't bad mame by the Nazis, who mducted barbaric and le thal tests 00 concentration camp inmates during World War II, But tht use of voluntum in medical wcperimeats 3s an ethically defensible reseatch metbod under b e right circumshces. In 1900, for eXampre, army doctar Waiter 'gainedby this study made it possible to costrol yenow fever by eradicating musquitoes, which saved untold tbumnds of lives. Even today, potentiaaV dangvous dmgs ahd surgical techiques are sometimes tested severely iUpatients-Barney Clark, for me -who am willing to act w guinoau pigs. fkriments when they involve radiation instead of experimental dmgs. Precautions should be takq, in such studies, to prevent genetic damage from Wig passed on to a subject's offspring. This was apparently done in the AEC-DOE experimmts, when prisons who volunteered to have their testicles exposed to X-rays or cobalt were re qulred to agree to vasectomies. Some of the inmates backed out of those agreements afterwards,but no testrelated birth defects seem to have surfaced. 'The qtdiation experheats dn questionable in otber re spec@,though. The use of prisonem, though a common practice at the time, mprobably wrong. Inmates live under arnasud ctmditia~:they have littfe money and prisoa authorities3 with tbekwilbgness to do good. Atl of t k e factom can Impel them to step tom& when sub jects are needed for potentially hazardous experiments. Inmates m o t bt considend"voluateen" in the same bc118e that word WOr I ren might be. And humen experhenti that imperil a subject's health 01 life are always suspect, menwhen volunteeft are used. pelling medical need, or unless there's some chance that the experheat might benefit a kminally ill patient. Was there a compelliflg medical need, or prceived need, in this case? Did the threat to astsonauts, nuclear workers of their growiag recognition of radiatioa hazards. That's an ethicaI decisfon meryone can agra with. wikhout tmderstding i$w res w ch s 20 yean ago. viewed the risk to their subjects. In any caw, scienlists