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.


                                                           TAB H

               þþþDRAFT þ FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSESþþþ

MEMORANDUM

TO:       Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation 
	  Experiments

FROM:     Advisory Committee Staff

DATE:     October 4, 1994

RE:       Selection of Institutions for Case Studies



     At the September meeting, the Committee asked the staff to 
prepare a memorandum identifying options for the further study of 
specific research institutions.  This memorandum summarizes the 
staff's understanding of the basic purposes for the inquiry, staff's 
proposed criteria for selection of institutions, and highlights of the 
institutions surveyed.  The attachments provide further details on the 
seven institutions surveyed:  Los Alamos National Laboratories, Oak 
Ridge, School of Aviation Medicine, and university complexes in Boston 
and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Northern and Southern California, and 
Chicago.  

     In summary:  (1)  in some cases, notably Los Alamos, Lawrence 
Berkeley Lab/University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and the 
School of Aviation Medicine, there is sufficient available data and 
overlap with other Committee inquiry that some degree of study of 
these entities should proceed in any case; (2) in other cases, such as 
Oak Ridge, Chicago, and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), 
staff resource commitments to develop basic information will be 
needed, but these commitments might pay off in rich stores of 
institutions that were at nodes of Cold War radiation research 
activity.  Staff's recommendations for institutions that should be the 
subject of case studies will be discussed at the October Committee 
meeting.

I.   RATIONALE FOR CASE STUDIES REVISITED

     As discussed at the September meeting, the rationale for case 
studies is three fold:

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     1.  Responsibility for decision-making.  We already have learned 
much about experimental planning and purpose from headquarters-level 
documentation, such as the minutes of the Atomic Energy Commission 
(AEC) Advisory Committee on Biology and Medicine and the Department of 
Defense (DOD) Joint Panel on the Medical Aspects of Atomic Warfare.  
The institutional case studies will follow the trail of 
decision-making into the field.  Particular questions include:  (a) 
Where experiments served government as well as medical/scientific 
purposes, what institutional means ensured the integrity of the 
weighing of social benefit against individual risk?;  (b) Where 
multiple institutions were involved in experiments, who determined the 
governing rules, and who assured their effectuation?; and (c) Who 
assured that the results of experiments were used?

     2.  Policy Percolation.  The Committee has already learned that 
in Washington, DC, AEC and DOD officials articulated ethics policies 
on paper in the 1940s and 1950s.  The question is how and whether 
these policies percolated downward to those who were performing the 
experiments.

     3.  Efficiency.  Where institutions conducted many experiments, 
their study provides an efficient way to learn about individual 
experiments or groups of them.  By the same token, where institutions 
are nodes on a research network, their study provides another vantage 
on the policies and practices of the agencies and private institutions 
to which they were connected.

II.  CRITERIA

     The criteria staff proposes for selecting institutions include 
the following:

     1.  Experiments conducted.  However otherwise interesting, the 
Committee must devote its resources to institutions where significant 
numbers of experiments were conducted.

     2.  Nature of the institution/links with other institutions.  The 
Committee will want to compare government-sponsored institutions 
(e.g., national labs) with private sector institutions (e.g., 
universities), and to include, where possible Department of Veterans 
Affairs (VA) facilities, as well as DOD and DOE (AEC) facilities.

     3.  Links to stories, themes, or questions that the Committee 
will want to address in any case.[This factor might be viewed as 
weighing for or against making the institution the subject of a case 
study.]  For example, did the institution conduct "Charter" intentional 
releases (such as Los Alamos or Oak Ridge)?  Was it associated with 
early ethics policies (such as DOD institutions, following the 
Secretary of Defense's 1953 directive)?  Did it have its own early 
ethics policies (such as Los Alamos)?  Was it involved in experiments 
that we already are studying?

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     4.  "Researchability" within resource limits.  In some cases, we 
already have considerable data on institutions.  In other cases, data 
are said to be readily available.  In still other cases, the 
reconstruction of history is more precarious.

     5.  Themes or questions which the institution is particularly 
likely to illuminate.


III. INSTITUTIONS SURVEYED

     The staff selected seven institutions to focus on for further 
consideration from among a larger number of institutions that have 
been or are the subject of data-gathering.  Those selected are:

*    DOE sites
               1.  Los Alamos National Laboratory
               2.  Oak Ridge

*    A DOD research institution
               3.  The School of Aviation Medicine

*    University complexes
               4.  Greater Boston, Massachusetts
               5.  Northern California
               6.  Southern California

*    A DOE site with close connection to a university.
               7.  The Argonne National Laboratory and the University 
		   of Chicago

     The attachments provide capsule descriptions for each 
alternative.  An overview of each institution is provided below:

     1.  Los Alamos National Laboratory:  As noted in the last 
briefing book, Los Alamos has already engaged in a substantial search.  
Committee and DOE/Los Alamos staff are engaged in focusing further 
inquiry.  (Attachment 1)

     2.  Oak Ridge:  Oak Ridge was a center of the AEC research and 
weapons production network.  The complete involvement of the multiple 
Oak Ridge institutions in human experimentation is not clear.  Large 
collections of documents are available, but a large amount of search 
work remains.  (Attachment 2)

     3.  School of Aviation Medicine (SAM):  SAM was involved in a 
relatively large number of human experiments, and the Air Force has 
offered to make available extant documentation and other informational 
sources.  (Attachment 3)

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     4.  The University of California/Los Angeles (UCLA):  UCLA's 
Medical School, whose first dean was Manhattan Project Medical 
Director Stafford Warren, was connected to the AEC (as the site of the 
Atomic Energy Project, which was directly charged with studying 
biomedical effects of radiation), the Air Force (SAM), Los Alamos, and 
the VA.  However, retrieval of records is less advanced, and 
relatively less is known about the specifics of experimental programs.  
(Attachment 4)

     5.  The University of California/Bay Area Biomedical Research:  
The San Francisco/Berkeley area was the locale for pre-Manhattan 
Project experimentation, plutonium injection experimentation, and the 
site of post-war work by Drs. Hamilton, Lawrence, and Stone.  The UCSF 
and the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory are reportedly far along in 
records retrieval.  Other experiments of interest already have been 
identified at Berkeley.  (Attachment 5)

     6.  The Greater Boston Radiation Research Complex:  The Greater 
Boston area houses a number of independent, but related, institutions 
which played central roles in radiation research (and, of course, 
research in general) during the Cold War.  Some of the experiments 
conducted (e.g., the Fernald School) will be a Committee focus.  
However, while staff is canvassing Boston-area archival collections, 
there is no presently planned agency-sponsored search (as in the case 
of the California system).  (Attachment 6)

     7.  The Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago:  
These Chicago institutions inherited substantial research projects 
from the Manhattan Project.  Indeed, certain of the early plutonium 
injections were conducted in Chicago, and will be reviewed by the 
Committee.  The Laboratory has conducted a preliminary review of its 
documents; parallel efforts at the University of Chicago have not 
uncovered significant new evidence.  (Attachment 7)

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