1995: Findings of the Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments

In 1963, prior to flights into space, scientists were concerned about the effect of space radiation on astronauts’ testicles. They also were concerned about radiated gonads of workers at America’s atomic energy plants. So, they conducted experiments designed to test the effects of massive radiation on prisoners’ testicles without any…

1995: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a Roadmap of Human Radiation Experiments summarizing 150 plus an additional 275 radiation experiments conducted by DOE and its predecessor, the AEC, during the 1940s–1970s. The Roadmap cites a 1986 congressional report entitled American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on…

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.

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…

The government began sponsoring total body irradiation (TBI) research in 1942 in connection with the Top Secret Manhattan Project — the nuclear scientists who developed the Atom Bomb. From its inception with the US nuclear program and supporting government policy placed scientific and military advancement far above the safety of…