Press Release, Subject: Markey Releases Report on Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.s. Citizens

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SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY CONSERVATION CHIEF COUNSEL AND STAFF DIRECTOR CHAIRMAN U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING ANNEX NO. 2 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Raoul Rosenberg MARKEY RELEASES REPORT ON THREE DECADES OF RADIATION EXPERIMENTS Washington--Congressman Edward J. Markey, Chairman of a House Subcommittee with jurisdiction over - nuclear energy programs, today released a staff report titled, "American Nuclear Guinea Pigs : Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens. The Subcommittee staff report reviewed documents which the Department of Energy supplied to Markey's Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power. In a letter to Secretary of Energy John Herring ton, Markey noted that the DOE documents " revealed the frequent and systematic use of human subjects as guinea pigs. " The experiments were sponsored by the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission, predecessors to DOE, and were carried out from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s. The report described in detail 31 experiments, during which about 695persons were exposed. I n many experiments, individuals were exposed to radiation that provided little or no medical benefit to the subjects.The purpose of several experiments was actually to cause injury to the subjects. Many others sought simply t o measure the effects of radiation on humans. As Markey noted to Herring ton, "American citizens thus became nuclear calibration devices for experimenters run amok. human subjects that were captive audiences or populations that some experimenters frighteningly perhaps might have considered from terminal diseases who might not have retained their full faculties for informed consent. " Markey also noted that "TOO many of these experiments used Markey closed his letter by urging the Department of Eenrgy t o make " every practicable effort " to identify the persons who served as subjects,to examine their long-term health histories, and t o compensate victims of radiation - associated diseases. repugnant or bizarre " o f these human radiation experi.44eiiCs.