1995: Findings of the Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments

Between1948–1954, 582 Baltimore school children were subjected to radiation in a federally-funded experiment whose stated intent was to gauge long-term hearing loss. The treatment was incorporated as “standard care,” and an average of 150 patients a month, mostly children, were given the treatment at the Johns Hopkins clinic over a…

In 2000, the former participants in the Walla Walla experiments settled a $2.4 million class-action settlement from the University. Dr. Paulsen defended the tests stating, “If our work was unethical, then you’d have to say that all the [federal and UW advisory boards] that approved it in those days were…

During WWII, hundreds of scientists and technicians working to develop the atomic bomb at Los Alamos were exposed to radioactive substances, including plutonium, whose hazards were not entirely known. Pioneers of nuclear science, such as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Louis Hempelmann, and Stafford Warren, masterminded the experiments from the headquarters they…

U.S. Air Force threw “Radiation bombs” expelled from USAF planes intentionally spread radiation to “unknown distances” endangering Americans young and old alike. 1949: “Green Run” intentional radioactive contamination experiment over Hanford, WA. A massive intentional experiment was conducted by General Electric officials and officials from the Department of Defense (DOD)…

In 1950, Dr. Joseph G. Hamilton, a top radiation biologist at the AEC, sent a memo to Dr. Shields Warren, a senior AEC official who directed human radiation experiments; he warned him that the radiation experiments might have “a little of the Buchenwald touch,” and that commission officials “would be…

1994: Ali Zaidi, a student at the University of Rochester, was not informed about the risks of radiation when he was asked to sign a consent form for a clinical trial testing Heliobacter pylori. The study was eventually terminated and researchers placed on probation.