Unethical U.S. Human Radiation Experiments on 800 Pregnant Women
Horrible research on mentally disabled, prisoners, and women.
The medical community has learned a lot. But the ways are quite questionable, as history has seen researchers exploiting uninformed people throughout — be it women, children, prisoners, slaves, or mentally disable ones.
Interestingly, the scientific researchers and other government officials performing radiation studies have always known about their unethical practice.
The immoral practices were one of the reasons for keeping the experiments secret. Many doctors believed that asking for consent meant losing the subjects. Like really?
Shockingly, the human radiation experiments stretched for 30 years, involving thousands of uninformed American citizens. Let’s take a deep dive into the crazy stories of such experiments in the United States:
Why radiation experiments were done on humans?
The scientists involved in the Manhattan Project knew one thing: they had to dive deep into the effects of radiation poisoning. Thus, in 1942, during World War 2, the Health Division was established to protect the health of project workers and the general public.
At first, the radiation experiments were done on animals, but researchers were dissatisfied with the information gathered.
Experiments on animals were not sufficient for creating informed guidelines for people working under radiation. As a result, the Health Division of the Manhattan Project turned towards experimenting with humans.
In 1944, the first human radiation experiment was planned. There were few instances where patients did sign a consent form, but it lacked information regarding the risks and procedures involved.
A few years later, in 1947, The AEC proposed that human experimentation should be kept secret to avoid public opinion and other legal suits.
Putting 800 pregnant women at risk
Some similar experiments were conducted on women — pregnant women. Vanderbilt University’s researchers in the 1940s gave 800 pregnant white women doses of radioactive iron. The Public Health Service partly funded the horrific researches.
The women thought they were consuming just vitamin drinks; had they known the back story, they would never have taken a sip.
The effects soon manifested. Three of the children born to the participating women lost the battle of life; their deaths occurred due to some form of cancer.
History does not hold most original documents of such an experiment as it was either lost or intentionally destroyed. Even the numbers got messed up. Instead of the count of 800 women, today, the partial records say 200.
In response to the lawsuit, in 1998, Vanderbilt University and the Rockefeller Foundation, which somewhat funded the study, paid a $10.3 million settlement to the women experimented on. But the damage of life was done.
Radioactive oatmeal tested on mentally disabled
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Atomic Energy Commission approved an experiment of radioactive oatmeal at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The researchers partnered with Quaker oats and fed oatmeal laced with radioactive elements to children.
The Fernald School was targeted for experiments, and it held mentally disable students. Additionally, other children were also targeted who did not have any adult guardians.
More than 70 boys aged 10–17 were given the oatmeal with milk containing radioactive calcium and iron. Sadly, one of the experiments revolved around the direct injection of radioactive calcium, and the boys knew nothing.
The participants thought they enjoyed the perks of being part of the science club at the school, a perk that offered them oatmeal breakfast.
It was not until 1998 that former Fernald students got the air of unconsented experiments. They filed a case against the researchers, forcing Quaker Oats Co. and MIT to settle for $1.85 million.
MIT acknowledged how the consent procedure was not followed, but they also took a defensive mode stating none of the experiments was strong enough to harm the subject.
Reproductive radiation tests on prisoners
The Atomic Energy Commission had several questions about radiation effects on the testicle. To ease their burning curiosity, AEC planned an experiment on imprisoned people at Washington and Oregon prisons. The experiments on both places co-occurred between 1963 and 1973.
About 131 Imprisoned at Washington State Penitentiary were exposed to X Rays on testicles, while 67 imprisoners of Oregon state were put under the same conditions.
Sadly, such an experiment was not only sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation of Seattle but also funded by NASA, which aimed to witness the effects of space radiation.
The procedure was awful: an imprisoned person was exposed to about 2400 chest X-rays on one’s testicles for about 10 minutes.
The report of ACHRC suggests that prisoners knew nothing about the risk. But even had they known what they would have done?
Oregon’s tested imprisoners later suffered from testicular cysts and skin eruptions, resulting in filing a class-action suit in the 1970s. Each prisoner received $2000 as compensation.
Investigations into the human experiments
Many of the above-listed human rights abuses surfaced during the investigations of the federal committee.
The report “American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens,” of 1986 exposed the United States government.
It expounded how experiments were sponsored by “the Manhattan Project, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Energy Research and Development Administration.”
Further, in 1993, journalist Eileen Welsome brought several of the government’s experiments to the surface, resulting in ex-president bill Clinton creating the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.
The final report of the findings was published in 1995, and it shook off the senses of sane human beings — it exposed every experiment carried in secrecy.
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