Human radiation studies: Remembering the early years: Oral history of cell biologist Don Francis Petersen, Ph.D., conducted November 29, 1994

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HUMAN RADIATION STUDIES: REMEMBERING THE EARLY YEARS Oral History of Cell Biologist Don Francis Petersen, Ph.D. United States Department of Energy Office of Human Radiation Experiments DISTRIBUTION OF THIS DOCUMfcN f li> UNUMITEO

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This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency Thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

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IN DECEMBER 1993, U.S. Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary announced her Openness Initiative. As part of this initiative, the Department of Energy undertook an effort to identify and catalog historical documents on radiation experiments that had used human subjects. The Office of Human Radiation Experiments 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 coimtry in holding areas, archives, and records centers. The Department has produced a roadmap to the large universe of pertinent information: Human Radiation Experiments: The Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and the Records (DOE/EH-0445, February 1995). The collected documents are also accessible through the Intemet World Wide Web under http : //www. ohre. doe. gov. 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 fulfill this goal. The project involved interviewing researchers and others with firsthand knowledge of either the htmian 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 audiotaped interviews were conducted fi-om 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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From South Dakota to University of Chicago (1950) to Los Alamos (1956) 2 Outlining the Agenda for Radiation Research (Early '50s) 4 MET Lab Research in the Metabolism of Radionuclides 5 Choosing a Career at Los Alamos (1956) 6 Nuclear Weapons Fallout Studies (1946-54) 8 The Radiobiology Group's Research Project Approval Process 9 Mission of the Los Alamos Biomedical Group in the 1950s 11 Participation as a Subject in Human Radiation Studies 12 Measuring Iodine-131 Uptake in Children (Circa 1963) 15 AEC Authorization of the Use of Human Subjects (1956) 17 AEC and Military Differ on the Use of Human Subjects 19 Dr. Lushbaugh's Diagnostic Use of Radioisotopes (1956-63) 21 AEC Procedure for Authorizing the Use of Radioactive Materials Use of Humans to Calibrate a Whole-Body Counter; Study of Iron-59 Metabolism .. 24 Postmortem Assistance Following the SL-I Reactor Accident (1961) 27 Contribution to Cell Biology Research 29 Leadership of the Los Alamos Divisions and Groups Following Relationship Between the Health Division and the Weapons Design Division 33 Health Division Biomedical Responsibilities and Nuclear Testing 36 Dr. Wright Langham's Postwar Studies of Plutonium 38 Public Misperceptions of Radiation 40 Researchers' Use of Human Counters 41 Protocol for the Use of Human Subjects 42 Providing Patients for Dr. Lushbaugh's Research 43

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The opinions expressed by the interviewee are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Department neither endorses nor disagrees with such views. Moreover, the Department of Energy makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the information provided by the interviewee.

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August 1995 Setting: November 29, 1994, Los Alamos, New Mexico Interviewers: Marisa Caputo and Darrell Fisher (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) ORAL HISTORY OF CELL BIOLOGIST DON FRANCIS PETERSEN, Ph.D. Conducted on November 29, 1994, by Marisa Caputo of the U.S. Department of Darrell Fisher ofBattelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories, a contractor to DOE. Dr. Don Petersen was selected for the Oral History Project because of his long research career at Los Alamos and his knowledge of the Atomic Energy Commission 's biomedical programs. ried and has three children. He received his A.B. from Depauw University in 1947, his M.S. from South Dakota State College in 1950, and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Chicago in 1954. His Ph.D. work was on the effects of x-ray irradiation on animals. Dr. Petersen moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1956, where he served in Group H-4, Radiobiology (later renamed Bio-Medical Research), led by Wright Langham. He worked in the Biochemistry section, and from 1964 to 1974 was the Section Leader for Cell Biology. In 1974 and 1975 he was the Group Leader for Cell Biology, and, from 1975 to 1979, the Alternate Health Division Leader. From 1979 to 1981, Dr. Petersen served as the Acting Life Sciences Division Leader. From 1981 to the present, he has been the Program Manager for the Chemical and Biological Program. Dr. Petersen did not personally conduct experiments on human subjects, although he was familiar with several of the experiments at Los Alamos. In at least one experiment. Dr. Petersen was a volunteer subject. This iodine-131 experiment was published in Health Physics, Volume 9 (1963) in an article by Van Dilla and Fulwyler. Dr. Petersen also served as a volunteer subject in experiments that studied the survival times of red blood cells tagged with chromium-51. These experiments were reported in the Health Division's 1957 annual report, and may have been performed in collaboration with the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Petersen has allowed his own children to be used as subjects in one or more experiments involving radioiodine. Dr. Petersen has published articles on the following topics: • long-term studies of plutonium exposure involving autopsies of plutonium workers, analysis of tissues from members of the general population, and tissue analysis of individuals exposed during weapons tests; • studies on radioactive contamination levels in soil at various locations around Los Alamos and across the country, and studies performed to determine the amounts of contamination transmitted to growing plants; and • radioactive pollution from inactive uranium mills and uranium tailings dumpsites. Dr. Petersen is a member of the following professional societies: • American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, and American Society of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics.

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Setting: November 29, 1994, Los Alamos, New Mexico Interviewers: Marisa Caputo and Darrell Fisher (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) From South Dakota to University of Chicago (1950) to Los Alamos (1956) CAPUTO: Today is November 29,1994. My name is Marisa Caputo from the Office of Human Radiation Experiments, Department of Energy. Also with me is Dr. Darrell Fisher from Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Donald Petersen [of the Los Alamos National Laboratory] about his knowledge of human radiation experimentation during the Cold War. Dr. Petersen, I was hoping you could start with how you became involved in your field of work and what brought you to Los Alamos. PETERSEN: I got into science through acquaintance at a small college in my hometown. After I got out of the Navy in World War II, I went to the South Dakota State University. I was taking a few classes, and I got a job working in the Agricultur&l Experirnent Station there. The principal interest of that group was [the] toxicity of selenium. I worked there for a while and the practice of the director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Dr. Al Moxon, was to watch the kids that were working for him. One day he would come in and tell you that you couldn't work for him anymore, but that he had another job lined up for you. Always he would place his employees with major professors in leading institutions around the country, with arrangements so that they could receive stipends that would pay for their education. Many of the people who got out of the service right after World War II really weren't very bright, and they squandered their GI Bill before it really counted, finishing up college and things of that sort. When it came time to go to graduate school I had no funds. just for me: He did this for all the kids that worked for him. He would give them several options. Such-and-Such a school with So-and-So. Always these major professors in [other] institutions had either assistantships or some other arrangement for allowing a person to work in a laboratory and pay for their education. That happened to me. He said that I could either go to the University of Wisconsin on a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Fellowship, or I could go to the University of Chicago and work at the Tox[icity] Lab' for money. (laughter) I was not very sophisticated in those days. I looked at that University of Chicago "for money" offer and figured that was the good one. It turned out that the Wisconsin offer was the good one. The stipend there was beer money; everything was paid for. Either one of them was ' During World War II, the University of Chicago ran a toxicity laboratory for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to conduct research in chemical warfare. From 1948 until 1951, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) used the facility for radiological warfare research. In 1948, the AEC worked with the Army and the university on a research program for the laboratory that focused on the poisonous effects of radiation exposure. Animal research was conducted on the local effects and general toxicity of radioisotopes considered for use as radiological warfare agents. Some coincidental work was also done with Argonne National Laboratory on developing occupational safety practices for radiation handling.

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Setting: November 29,1994, Los Alamos, New Mexico Interviewers: Marisa Caputo and Darrell Fisher (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) components or radioactively labeled' compounds, normal metabolites' just exploded the whole imderstanding of what was then called biochemistry. That was essentially the thing we were fascinated with. In addition to that, of course, we were interested in the metabolism of labeled drugs, therapeutic agents. Los Alamos synthesized the first pharmaceutical made with pile'° [radio]carbon. Not many people know that. [Art Murray,] Tony Ronzio, Lloyd Roth (who was at the University of Chicago with me later), and Wright Langham" [reported the] synthesis carefully, in spite of the excitement, and the dominant idea was to help, not hurt anyone—be they a volunteer, a patient, an investigator, or a So you got your Ph.D. at the University of Chicago and then came on to PETERSEN: I stayed at the University of Chicago for a couple of years after I got my Outlining the Agenda for Radiation Research (Early '50s) FISHER: What was your experimental work at Chicago? PETERSEN: We were interested in radiation-effects studies. There were "camps" at the time. Harvey Patt thought that this [(radiation injury)] was all based on cellular [effects]. There was another camp, of which Kenny DuBois and I were members, that believed that the fiindamental radiation effects were probably on enzyme systems. Then there were the people that were doing the phenomenological work with intact animal models, looking primarily at acute effects of radiation. The concerns in those days were, really, "Were we going to be attacked by the Russians?" Civil defense was a big deal. That shows up in some of the studies that we've been looking at here. There was a molecular [level]—^we didn't call it molecular at the time, that word didn't become fashionable for another five or ten years. But we were interested in radiation effects at the molecular level. [We] were looking at enzyme systems. Then there was another gang that was looking at the effects on cells and organs, thinking that the fundamental effects of radiation were due to organ failure. Muller's [drosophila] fruit flies were already well-known to everybody [as tools to study genetic incorporated with a radioactive isotope to make a substance traceable ' products of metabolism '° an early form of a nuclear reactor, an apparatus in which a nuclear-fission chain reaction is sustained and " At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Langham led the Health Division's Radiobiology Group from 1947 until his death in 1972. *^ a water-soluble solid compound used to treat tuberculosis

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August 1995 Setting: November 29,1994, Los Alamos, New Mexico Interviewers: Marisa Caputo and Darrell Fisher (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) a perfect opportunity. And the McArdle Memorial Cancer Institute at the University of Wisconsin has been a spectacular place over time, in terms of its scientific reputation. But the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Chicago Gelling. It's interesting that the director of the Toxicity Laboratory at the time was [Dr.] Franklin MacLean, who had been in the [Manhattan Engineer District's and Atomic Energy Commission's] Santa Fe Area Office during the time immediately after the war years and the early testing period. By the time I got to Chicago in [the] 1950-to-'51 time frame, he was just back fi-om that job and back on the University of Chicago faculty again. We knew quite a bit about what was going on down here, and the Tox Lab had very close ties with the Met Lab.^ Argonne^ had not yet moved out to Lamont[, Illinois]. They were still on the University of Chicago campus. That was sort of a big family where everybody, even the graduate students, knew everybody else. The formalisms of an academic environment were clearly there, but we knew a lot of the people who were I actually worked next to John Thompson, who later had a successfiil career at Argonne. He was in the laboratory at the same time I was. That whole community, the radiation community at that time, was pretty tight. They were a close-knit bunch. This was all brand new. There was a great deal of interest, enthusiasm, curiosity, [and] anxiety to exploit this new technique. If you think about it in terms of what we know today in biology and medicine, the fraction that we would know without the …