DISCLAIMER

The following is a staff memorandum or other working document 
prepared for the members of the Advisory Committee on Human
Radiation Experiments.  It should not be construed as representing
the final conclusions of fact or interpretation of the issues. 
All staff memoranda are subject to revision based on further 
information and analysis.  For conclusions and recommendations of
the Advisory Committee, readers are advised to consult the Final
Report to be published in 1995.



MEMORANDUM

TO:       Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation 
	  Experiments

FROM:     Advisory Committee Staff

DATE:     June 8, 1995

RE:       Documentary Update on Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Policy 
          on Human Experimentation



     Attached to this memorandum are three documents, two of which 
were sent by the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory 
and one which was retrieved by staff from the National Archives.

Attachment 1:  Summary Minutes of the January 12, 1951 meeting of 
               Argonne Division of Biological and Medical Research 
               Program Committee states on page 4:

          As parts of a general discussion concerning the program, it 
          was pointed out that the current investigation of toxicity 
          in human beings is an excellent example of the kind of 
          activity for which a hospital is needed and use for which 
          the Argonne Cancer Hospital is intended.  The Argonne Cancer 
          hospital can reasonably be expected to provided the access 
          to clinical material needed by the Division  in its cancer 
          investigations and certainly the hospital is the proper 
          place for experiments involving radioactivity in human 
          beings.
     
          Concerning the last subject, Mr Marinelli [an Argonne 
          doctor] asked if there is a general policy concerning human 
          experimentation.  Dr. McLean [head of the University of 
          Chicago Toxicity Laboratory and AEC RW program] said that 
          the Advisory Committee of the Division of Biology and 
          Medicine of the AEC has been approached several times in the 
          past for a general policy and had refused to formulate one.  
          Apparently, proposals for human experimentation with 
          radioactivity will continue to be judged on an individual 
          basis.

     In comment, Dr. Robert Schlenker, current chair of Argonne Lab's 
Director's Ad Hoc Committee on Human Health Research,  states that this 
exchange "implies that experiments proposed by ANL [Argonne Lab] must be 
reviewed by the AEC."

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Attachment 2:  April 14, 1953 response from H.W. Patt of the Division 
               of Biological and Medical Research at Argonne to J. 
               Vodraska, who apparently had volunteered to serve as an 
               experimental subject, states:

          We do not conduct experiments on human beings.  Moreover, 
          the treatment for radiation sickness referred to in the 
          newspapers is, in my opinion, not practical.

     Schlenker observes that this document "simply states that ANL 
does not conduct experiments on human beings.  Concurrently, of 
course, ANL scientists were administering radioisotopes to healthy 
employees for the purpose of calibrating whole body counters."  
According to Schlenker, no records have been found relating to these 
uses of radioactivity.  

     It should be noted that staff has found a number of letters 
similar to Patt's sent by the AEC in response to unsolicited offers to 
volunteer for experimentation.  Essentially, it is a form letter.

Attachment 3:  March 14, 1947 memorandum from Dr. A.M. Brues, director 
               of the Argonne Biology Div. to N. Hilberry, Associate 
               Laboratory Director, concerning AEC policy on clinical 
               testing 

Dr. Brues first quotes from a letter from Stafford Warren, chair of 
the Interim Medical Advisory Committee:
     
          At present clinical testing programs have been authorized as 
          a part of the University of California at Berkeley and the 
          University of Rochester contracts only.  In the interim 
          period. . . . it is requested that no other clinical testing 
          be performed by other contractors than has been already 
          authorized.

     Brues then addresses the status of work being undertaken at 
Argonne, specifically Dr. Leon Jacobson's arsenic76 tracer studies 
using human subjects:

          I have been assuming that this [i.e., the tracer studies] is 
          part of the approved program of this Laboratory and that the 
          responsibility for the patients was clearly in the hands of 
          the University of Chicago, which Dr. Jacobson assures me is 
          satisfied with the program at Billings [Hospital].

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          In the first place, the University of Chicago has been 
          engaged in work using human subjects and related to the work 
	  of the Manhattan Project.  As reference to this regard, I can 
	  cite report No. CH-3607, which was declassified on the last 
	  day of 1946, entitled, "Distribution and Excretion of 
	  Plutonium  in Two Human Subjects."

          . . . . [i]t seems to me fortunate that we can parallel our 
          animal observations in humans through the experience and 
          clinical contact of Dr. Jacobson.  This work will obviously 
          give us information bearing on the extrapolation of animal 
          work to the human which is most justifiable in the case of 
          this short-lived isotope, which we have good reason to 
          believe may be of actual value to these patients.


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