Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments facts for kids

The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was a special group created in 1994. Its main job was to look into the history of the United States government's involvement. They investigated studies where people were exposed to radiation. President Bill Clinton started this committee. He did this with an official order called Executive Order 12891 on January 15, 1994. Ruth Faden from The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics was in charge of the committee.

The committee finished its work in October 1995. They released a very long report, over a thousand pages. This report was shared at a special event at the White House.

Discovering the Truth

Early Discoveries

The public first learned about these radiation studies a long time ago. A newsletter called Science Trends mentioned it in 1976. Then, Mother Jones magazine wrote about it in 1981. A reporter named Howard Rosenburg used the Freedom of Information Act. This law helps people get government documents. He gathered many papers to investigate the radiation studies. These studies happened at the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies. Today, it's called the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

The Mother Jones article led to a special meeting. This meeting was held by a part of the House Science and Technology Committee. Congressman Al Gore led this meeting. His group said the radiation experiments were "satisfactory, but not perfect."

A Deeper Look

In November 1986, a new report came out. It was written by the team of Congressman Ed Markey from Massachusetts. Not many news outlets talked about it. The report was titled "American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three decades of radiation experiments on U.S. citizens." It said that 31 human radiation experiments had taken place. Nearly 700 people were involved in these studies.

Markey asked the Department of Energy to find the people who were part of these experiments. He wanted them to be paid for any harm they suffered. This did not happen. Officials knew who did the experiments. They also knew the names of some of the people involved. After the report was released, President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President George H. W. Bush did not want to start investigations.

The Markey Report

The Markey report found something very important. Between 1945 and 1947, eighteen hospital patients were given injections of plutonium. Doctors chose patients who they thought would die soon. But many of these patients lived for decades after the injections. Ebb Cade was one person who did not agree to be part of these medical experiments. He was injected with plutonium on April 10, 1945, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This experiment was overseen by Harold Hodge.

The Markey report stated something powerful. It said: "Although these experiments did provide information on the retention and absorption of radioactive material by the human body, the experiments are nonetheless repugnant because human subjects were essentially used as guinea pigs and calibration devices." This means that even though the experiments gave some information, they were very wrong. People were treated like test subjects, not like human beings.

Finding the Hidden Stories

Eileen Welsome's Work

The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was started because of new reports. These were a series of investigative stories by Eileen Welsome. She worked for The Albuquerque Tribune. Her reports were called The Plutonium Experiment. They started on November 15, 1993. These stories won a Pulitzer Prize.

Welsome's report was different from Markey's. She revealed the names of the people who were injected with plutonium. Welsome first found out about these experiments in 1987. She was looking through documents at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. She became curious when she saw a report about radioactive animal bodies. The report only used code names for the people involved. After winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1994, Welsome wrote a book. It was published in 1999 and called The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War.