Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years, Oral History of Pathologist Clarence Lushbaugh, M.D., Conducted October 5, 1994

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HUMAN RADIATION STUDIES: REMEMBERING THE EARLY YEARS Oral History of Pathologist Clarence Lushbaugh, M.D. United States Department of Energy Office of Human Radiation Experiments

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HUMAN RADIATION STUDIES: REMEMBERING THE EARLY YEARS Oral History of United States Department of Energy Office of Human Radiation Experiments

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her Openness Initiative. As part of this initiative, the Department of Energy Iundertook an effort to identify and catalog historical documents on radiation experiments that had used human subjects. The Office of Human Radiation Expenments coordinated the Department’s search for records about these experiments. An enormous volume of historical records has been located. Many of these records were disorganized; often poorly cataloged, if at all; and scattered across the country in holding areas, archives, and records centers. The Department has produced a roadmap to the large universe of pertinent information: Human Radiation Experiments: m e Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and the Recorh. The collected documents are also accessible through the Internet World Wide Web under http: //www.eh.doe.gov/ohre/home.htm. The passage of time, the state of existing records, and the fact that some decisionmaking processes were never documented in written form, caused the Department to consider other means to supplement the documentary record. In September 1994, the Office of Human Radiation Experiments, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, began an oral history project to fidfill this goal. The project involved interviewing researchers and others with firsthand knowledge of either the human radiation experimentation that occurred during the Cold War or the institutional context in which such experimentation took place. The purpose of this project was to enrich the documentary record, provide missing information, and allow the researchers an opportunity to provide their perspective. Thirty-two audiotaped interviews were conducted from September 1994 through January 1995. Interviewees were permitted to review the transcripts of their oral histories. Their comments were incorporated into the final version of the transcript if those comments supplemented, clarified, or corrected the contents of the interThe Department of Energy is grateful to the scientists and researchers who agreed to participate in this project, many of whom were pioneers in the development of

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Early Research and Publications in Pathology ............................4 Early Days at University of Chicago and Los Alamos ........................5 Establishing Safer Radiation Limits ...................................7 Move to Los Alamos ...............................................8 Early Animal Studies at Los Alamos Investigations of Radiological Accidents ............................... in Medical Diagnosis .............................................. 18 Other Human Radiological Studies at Los Alamos ........................ Move to Oak Ridge (1963) ......................................... LETBI and METBI Therapy for Lymphatic Diseases ...................... Charges That the Oak Ridge Radiation Therapy Was Not Effective ........... Questioning the Propriety of NASA-Funded Studies ...................... 40 Radiation Treatment Patients at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge Institutional Review Board at Oak Ridge ............................... Congressional Testimony on the Use of Whole Body Counting

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Date of Interview: October 5, 1994; Oak Ridge, Tennessee Interviewers: Roger Anders & Darrell Fisher, DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments Assisted by Ann Sipe ORAL HISTORY OF DR. CLARENCE C. LUSHBAUGH Conducted on October 5,1994 in Oak Ridge, Tennesseeby Darrell Fisher, a health physicistfrom Paapc Northwest Laboratory and Roger Anders, chief historian of the o f f e of Human Radiah’onExperiments, US.Department of Energy (DOE). Clarence C Lushbaugh was selectedfor the oral histov project because of his research at Los Alamos, his position as pathologist for Los Alamos County, and his research at the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Science. The oral history covers Dr. Lushbaugh ’s pathological research, his research with human subjects while at Los Alamos, and his total body irradiation research at the Oak Ridge Institutefor Nuclear Science. Dr. Lushbaugh was born in Covington, Kentucky on March 15,1916. He received 1948) from the University of Chicago. He has been married twice and has three children. Dr. Lushbaugh began his career as a pathology professor at the University of Chicago (1942-1949). From 1949 to 1963, Dr. Lushbaugh was a staff member in the Biomedical Research Group of the Health Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory and a pathologist at the Los Alamos Medical Center (LAMC). In addition, from 1950 to 1958, he was the Assistant District Health Officer for Los Alamos County. In 1963, Dr. Lushbaugh became Chief Scientist of the Medical and Health Sciences Division at Oak Ridge, where he led the Total Body Irradiation (TBI) Program, a position he held until 1975. From 1975 to 1984, Dr. Lushbaugh became Chairman of the Medical and Health Sciences Division at Oak Ridge and the Chief of Radiation Medicine. During this same period, Dr. Lushbaugh has held the following positions: 1974 to 1977-Director, Radiation Emergency Assistance CenterITraining Site (REACRS) of the Medical and Health Sciences Division, Oak Ridge 1979 to 1982-Acting Director, Center for Epidemiologic Research, DOE Health and Mortality Studies at Oak Ridge 1980 to present-Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1981 to 1989-Director, World Health Organization International Collaborating Center in Radiopathology and Radiation-Accident Preparedness, World Health Organization. Dr. Lushbaugh has published many times on total body irradiation; the effect of nuclear accidents and proper procedure for nuclear accidents; the effects of the use of isotopes; and radiation treatment. Additionally, he has focused on the subject of human radiobiology. Upbringing, Family, University of Chicago ANDERS: Ths is Roger Anders. I’mhere with Darrell Fisher. We’re in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at the Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education, in the Mdcal Department conference room on the second floor. It’s Wednesday,

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Date of Interview: October 5, 1994; Oak Ridge, Tennessee Interviewers: Roger Anders and Darrell Fisher, DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments Assisted by Ann Sipe Ann Sipe is here with us, assisting us with the interview. Having said that, we’re ready to go. My name is Darrell Fisher. Dr.Lushbaugh, you participated in the golden era of radlation research, when radionuclides were dscovered and then tested for biologcal and medical properties. But even before that, you did your medical training, and graduated before the Manhattan Project. One of the things that we would llke you to do is tell us about how you became interested in the field, not only of radiation medicine, but pathology, and how your career developed after you graduated from meQcal school. Go ahead and feel free to talk. Looking at my CV [cuniculmvitae] here, whch Ann Sipe just gave to me, I note that I was born on March 15, 1916. It fails to mention a fact, and it was a very big factor in my life, which was that my father died in the flu epidemic of World War I when I was age two and a half. He died in October of 1918. I, at that very early age, developed an interest in death, [a] fear of death, and became interested in becoming an M.D. I was helped greatly by my mother, who, as a widow, never remarried. She received the magnificent sum of $300 from my father when he died. I had many expenses, of course, involved in my medxal education. When I finally graduated as an M.D. in 1948, I received from my mother the same $300 that she had saved all those years. To start out fiom the be@g, I started in school there in Cincinnati, whch is across the river from where I was born in Covington [Kentucky]. We had just come back fi-omliving with my grandparents in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I, living with my mother, became enrolled in Hyde Park Grade School. I went through eight years of grade school there. Then I went to Walnut Hills High School[, which is also in Cincinnati]. At Walnut Hills High School, I graduated with honors and was also president of the senior class. That was in 1934. Then fiom Walnut Hills High School, I went to the University of Cincinnati and there took the premed [courses]. Much to my horror, Dr.Arthur C. Bachmeyer, who was then head of the Cincinnati General Hospital, left and became the dean at the University of Chicago. So, of course, I followed him there. I got my bachelor’s in Anatomy in 1938. That was about three bears] at University of Cincinnati and one year at Chicago. Then I became a fellow in pathology and sort of hddled and daddled about getting my M.D. I finally got a Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology in 1942. This was the same year that I was married, for the first time, to M a q Helen Chisolm, who was a nurse there at the University of Chicago. I had three chldren from Mary Helen. One, a son, [born in 19441, who is now a full professor at the University of Mississippi and a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine. Another son, born in 1949, who became a staff member at X-10, at [OakRidge] National Laboratory. He then was transferred to Y-12 and then transferred to K-25, where he is now a consultant. It is from hlm I have my three grandchildren: Jeffrey, who is now age 16; Sarah, age 13; and Kimberly, age 10-two girls.

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Date of Interview: October 5, 1994; Oak Ridge, Tennessee Interviewers: Roger Anders & Darrell Fisher, DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments Assisted by Ann Sipe I had, besides Bill, the firstborn, and Bob, the second-born, Nancy, the third-born. She now works at Y-12 as a techcian and as a safety expert. These parallel what I did at the University of Chicago, in that I went to work at the University of Chcago as an instructor, first as a fellow in Pathology and then as an instructor in Pathology, and finally as assistant professor. I remember that in 1949, after I had been in these roles for about 14 years, following my graduation with a bachelor’s in Anatomy, and a trainee in Pathology, I did get the Experimental Pathology degree in 1942, but I also married Mary Helen. Then, 14 years later, I got a call one day from Dr.F r d McLean, who was then professor of Physiology and also head of the University of Chcago Toxicity Laboratory. I had been loaned to the University of Chicago Toxicity Laboratory by Dr.Paul Cannon, who was the head of the Department of Pathology at the University of Chcago. I was the pathologist there and we were extremely, I would say, experimental in that we used only animals. It was a result of these animal stud~esand the work with nitrogen mustards, that I came upon the idea whch was probably the greatest idea that I ever had in my career. That was the use of nitrogen mustards as a chemotherapeutic agent in the treatment of cancer. Although I was, I want to say, the 13th or 16th person [listed] on the paper that was written by then Dean Leon Jacobson, who was the hematologst at the University of Chicago. At that time I only had a bachelor’s degree. But then I got the call from Franklin McLean. Franklin McLean wanted to know whether I would recommend the person who was a pathologist on the university side. Since 1was malang only $4,200 and had these three children [and] my wife, who was not working, I decided that the person I could recommend for that job in Los Alamos was Clarence Lushbaugh! So I recommended myself, particularly since the job carried a stipend of $10,000. In 1949 I left the University of Chicago and that was a year after I had gotten my M.D. But my M.D. was delayed by World War 11. World War I1 was long over [by] 1949, when I finally left the University of Chcago. You said [that] World War I1 delayed your degree? Did you do some In the University of Chcago’s Toxicity Laboratory where I worked as a pathologist, under Franklin McLean and the National Research Council, NRC, we s t u d ~ e dall sorts of chemical poisons that could be put out as war gases. It was in that area that I worked. I worked with mice and rabbits and dogs and the like. It was there that we dwovered [that] the nitrogen mustards were much like the sulphur mustards, whch had been used in World War I, but whch were water soluble. Although they were still vesicants,’ they could be put in a solution and injected into a person so the precise dose could be gotten. Also, I discovered that the nitrogen mustards were lymphotoxic* and were, therefore, applicabIe to the therapy of the various lymphomas. It was that idea that I took to Jacobson that day and 1 chemical agents that cause bums or destruction of tissue; and, agents or substances that produce a blister or blisters, as a medicinal substance. poisonous to the body’s lymphatic system

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Date of Interview: October 5, 1994; Oak Ridge, Tennessee Interviewers: Roger Anders and Darrell Fisher, DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments Assisted by Ann Sipe had to get permission from Dr.McLean in order to do the work in human beings. The human being research was carried on by Leon Jacobson and by his resident staff there in the Department of Hematology. Since he was a member of the Department of Medlcine, he had all the physicians in the Department of Medicine on the paper plus all the people who had any “swat” at all. So I was C.C. Lushbaugh, B.S., at the end of that paper! Since that time, my role in that area has been documented by the University of Chicago, although my name Clarence has been changed to Charles and my status as a pathologst has been changed to that of chemist. However, my name is Clarence C. Lushbaugh and I was a “Junior” until my father died. So I bore the name proudly and I resent very much the fact that I’m now Charles S. Lushbaugh from the University of Chxago! Early Research and Publications in Pathology One of the things I read as a graduate student there in the Department of Pathology was an article written by Drs. Warthin and Wellerd from the University of Michgan, who spoke about the radiomimetic activity of the sulphur mustards. They were reviewing the sulphur mustards [in their article]. This was about 1920 in the Journal of Pathology. It was they who put out the idea that there was a chemical that was radiomimetic, simulating the effects of radiation! It was at that time, in tallung with Dr.Cannon and the other associates of mine there in the departmen4 that I learned that Dr. Shields Warren was the head U.S. man in radiation pathology and that he had been to the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings aftermaths. He had tried to organize the pathologists of the United States and get some concurrence with the lethal dose of ralation in man, and how it would kill when you were exposed to radation. We found, much to his horror and later to mine, that there wasn’t an-g such as a radation pathologst in the United States. In h s articles, Shields Warren filled the role of a radiation pathologst in describing the pathology of the liver after radation and …