Advisory Committe on Human Radiation Experiments Speach on the First Civilian Burn Unit

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vcu PRES. OFFICE @I0 0 3 / 0 0 6 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS By Eugene P. Trani President, Virginia Commonwealth University Madam Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, on behalf of Virginia Commonwealth University, I thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. Under the auspices of the United Stales Department of Energy, the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments has been given 8 charge of historic and moral significance: to learn of the material and ethical scope of radiation esperiments conducted during the Cold War. We in the academic community must share in y o u r task. Supported by the Atomic Energy Commission and tha military, some of this work was conducted on our campuses. That responsibility, however, carries the equally important obligation for all of us to apply the most rigorous standards of intellectual honesty. Otherwise, the risk is too great that your work will be sensationalized out of all proportion to its true intent. It is that risk that I would like to talk briefly about today. A t Virginia Commonwealth University, w e have been Ioarning all we can about radiation studies that took place from 1949 to 19S9 in our Medical College of Virginia’s burn unit r; *e first civilian burn unit in the country. Our involvement, however, has come not as a result of being named in the DOE investigation but because of a newspaper article. An essay titled ‘‘Burning Secrets: In a Virginia

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vcu PRES. OFFICE Hospital, A Cold War Time of Strange Esperiments" published by Cliff Honfcker, director of the American Environmental Health Studies Project of the Commission on Religjon in Appalachia, in the June 19 edition of The Washington Post opens with the following: "Between 1949 and at least 1957, the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) ran a secret metabolic lab whose primary goal was preparation for massive nuclear casualtjes. Imbued with Cold War zeal and scientific arrogance, doctors conducted a series oE potentially dangerous experiments on hundreds of unaware human subjects, m o s t of them poor and African American. I' The studies conducted at MCV were neither secret nor dangerous; nor did they take advantage of vulnerable populations. As examples, a radioactive isotope incorporated in one of the studies -- chromium-51 -- is still part of a standard diagnostic test used around the world. In the course of t h e project, 27 articles were published in nationally recognized scientific journals : it also received coverage in local newspapers. And, in part of the project, African-American and women volunteers were purposely selected so that the research team could study the factors of sktn pigmentation and gender in burns. In all, what resulted from this work ~ w r ethe discoveries that would lead to the protocols used today to treat burn victims. As bad science and bad history, Honicker's article contributed nothing to the committee's charge to help the real victims of Cold-War radiation studies. It possibly, however, created new vigtitbs : our academic community, former patients alarmed by these aIlegations, and certainly the families of the MCV faculty who worked on these

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VCU PRES. OFFICE L Following a rebuttal that I wrote for the Post (published on July 3, 1994, under the title "No Burning Secrets"), Robert R. Evans, the son of Dr. Everett Idris Evans who directed the MCV project, wrote to me in behalf of his mother, brother, and sister to thank me for VCU's response. He noted in his letter: "I was a young boy at the time of these events, but not too young to appreciate the extraordinary character and dodication of this group of physicians . . . . I am greatly saddened that their contribution would be marred in any way. n As our archival record reveals, these were, in fact, extraordinary, compassionate individuals .. particularly regarding the volunteer prisoners who, we learned, had participated in some of the studies. In correspondence from 1951 with the Department of Wdfare and Institutions in Richmond, Dr. Evans wrote: "I consldor all of these experiments quite safe. Indeed, it is planned that w e will carry out on ourselves such experiments before we would ask the prisoners to volunteer for them." MCV who participated in tho project, also would record a series of observations on using prisoners as volunteers in a document that could easiIy have served as tho blueprint for the tenets of informed consent. He noted, for example, that human subjects should understand beforehand the procedures to be used in the research and the risks it posss, that they should be free to withdraw from the study at any time, and. that every attempt must bo made to minimize suffering. He also stated that "any human experiment must undertake to be open to inquiry- and, if necessary, investigation.

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vcu PRES. OFFICE Here is a way to separate sadistic from humanistic experimentation." It is true that nationalism -- as well as national purpose -- fueled the Cold War. It does not necessarily follow, however, that t h e science and the scientists that benefitted from federal support during this period were inherently unethical. Having been pactners in these radiation studies, the government and the academic community now should work together to ensure that this story is told thoroughly and accurately -- and that, in the process, the real victims are helped. Objectivity and a genuine desire for insight must drive our eQforts. W e are looking t o you, tho members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, to set that vitally important tone.