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 E DRAFT MEMORANDUM TO: Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments FROM: Advisory Committee Staff DATE: December 5, 1994 RE: Spokane Panel Meeting of November 21 On November 21, 1994, a panel of the Advisory Committee had a public meeting in Spokane, Washington. Reed Tuckson, chair of the Outreach subcommittee, chaired the meeting, with Susan Lederer, Henry Royal and Duncan Thomas present. Staff members present included Anna Mastroianni, Stephen Klaidman, Jerry Garcia, Tracy Smith, Kristin Crotty, Mark Goodman, Deborah Holland and Lanny Keller. The subcommittee heard witnesses from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Westcoast Ridpath Hotel. The public comment participants are grouped by subject matter as follows: Human Rights Leonard Schroeter, a Seattle public interest lawyer who has represented clients in lawsuits against Hanford, said he covered the Nuremberg trials as a reporter. He argued that human radiation experiments and intentional releases were crimes against humanity and violations of criminal statutes. Mr. Schroeter argued that releases should require individual consent from anyone exposed to "any meaningful risk." Geoffrey Sea, testifying for the third time before the Committee as researcher or activist, spoke on the problems which activists and union leaders have encountered with the Uranium and Transuranic registries. Prisoner Experiments Several speakers discussed the Washington and Oregon prison testicular irradiation experiments. Al Conklin, head of radiation matters for the Washington State Health Department, described the experiments in the Walla Walla study, which took place from 1963-1970. He said the main motivation for the study was a criticality accident that took place at Hanford in 1962, in which several workers were exposed to significant levels of neutron and gamma radiation, but contended that interest in radiation effects on cloud sampling crews and astronauts might also have been motivating factors. He raised a number of ethics concerns, including whether prisoners 1 were fully informed or properly consented to the experiments. He recommended, as an individual and not in his official capacity, that further medical follow-up and additional compensation should be provided experiment subjects. Harold Bibeau, who was a subject in the Oregon prisoner studies, described the experiments and some of their effects, including severe pain for some subjects. He also discussed his experiences in trying to get the federal government to respond. Although the State of Oregon has offered to provide free medical examinations to any subjects who come forward, Mr. Bibeau took the position that the DOE is responsible and should provide full medical follow-up. Catherine Knox of the Oregon Department of Corrections noted that Oregon subjects were explicitly promised medical follow-up, but that when the experiment was canceled the follow-up never occurred. She recommended that the federal government pay for medical follow-up. She also noted that the consent forms either provided inadequate information or were signed by Dr. Heller (the investigator) rather than the subject. Green Run Jim Thomas, formerly of the Hanford Education and Action League (HEAL) and currently research director of the Hanford Health Information Network Resource Center, spoke of his experiences obtaining over 100,000 pages of documents through some 150 Freedom of Information Act requests. He suggested that more documents might be available, based on his involvement in a lawsuit involving Hanford, and thought the legal offices at the AEC and at Hanford would have been involved both in intentional releases and in human experiments. During this discussion, Al Conklin was asked about the relevance of the classified portion of the Green Run document. He said that he had read it and concluded that it was not relevant to the dose reconstruction, but that it was relevant to the Advisory Committee because it addressed the "who and why" issues. Many downwinders referred explicitly to their exposures from the Green Run and the subsequent medical effects they ascribed to the exposures. Other Intentional Releases Jim Thomas mentioned other radiation releases from Hanford. He argued that the operational releases that occurred in late 1945 and early 1946 -- after V-J Day -- could be considered experimental, as could operations in 1951 after the failure of the silver reactor filters to remove I-131 from the stack effluent. He described the "mini-Green Run" of September 1963 as a possible environmental experiment of opportunity; Hanford researchers monitored one or two farm families. Mr. Thomas also noted that there had been proposals in the early 1980s to do environmental tracer studies similar to those done in 1962 and 1963. He said a fruitful line of inquiry might be why these studies did not occur. He noted that the still-secret Operation Bluenose was a multi-lab project involving Idaho as well as Hanford, but that he had no direct confirmation that it involved intentional releases. 2 Hanford Downwinders A large number of people who identified themselves as Hanford downwinders spoke about health effects they attributed to radioactivity from Hanford. Tom Bailie, who grew up on a farm just downwind from Hanford, identified a series of farms in his neighborhood as the "death mile." Others in this group included Gertie Hanson, who spoke of medical problems in her community of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, including thyroid problems, miscarriages, and cancer; Brenda Weaver, whose daughter was born without eyes; Kay Sutherland from Walla Walla, who described four miscarriages and two children who died shortly after birth; Jeanne Haycraft, who was born with birth defects; Lynn Horn, who described numerous family medical problems and said that her mother complained that her skin hurt after bomb tests; Rex Harter, who described large numbers of deformed cattle in his herd. Curt Leslie suggested that there had been several reactor accidents at Hanford, including a possible Chernobyl-type accident in March 1945. He also cited a 1955 Hanford document describing loss-of-coolant accidents which blew the roofs off the B and D reactors. (Mark Goodman has since investigated the reference. According to Hanford spokesmen, the reference is to the wind blowing the roof off the reactor buildings, not the heavy concrete roof of the reactor containment area.) Several speakers expressed their anger and frustration at being harmed by the government and not being told the truth, even today. Theresa Potts and Tom Cooper were angry about the Green Run and other intentional releases, and said that their sense of betrayal turned to cynicism at the inability to fully declassify the Green Run report. Kay Sutherland described Hanford's radiation releases as the "genocide of the American people." Lynn Horn told Committee members "you are our last chance." These speakers generally wanted several things from the government: a full accounting of what happened; an apology for harms done; medical surveillance and follow-up. Hanford Occupational Exposures Velma Grove worked at the 200W area at Hanford (the site of the T Plant from which the Green Run and other I-131 releases came) and attributed her uterine and breast cancer to radiation exposure. She also noted that her son worked at Hanford and became schizophrenic. Dietary Studies Several area residents described dietary studies involving schoolchildren near Hanford. Darcy Thrall, who spoke to the full Committee in San Francisco, said that she was taken from class at a school she attended in Benton City in 1961-62. She said she was given a white liquid to drink, sent through a machine, told to keep a log of food she ate, and monitored again later. She has been unable to locate relevant records, but has a dog tag she received at the time. (Ms. Thrall and Lanny Keller met later with Yvonne Sherman of the DoE Richland Operations Office. Ms. Sherman told Ms. Thrall that some record of her participation had been found and will be sent to her. The full records of the dietary study have been requested and some 3 obtained by the Advisory Committee staff.) Lynne Stembridge of the Hanford Education and Action League, who spoke at the Committee's San Francisco meeting, noted that the original release of information on the dietary studies said that students had ingested radioactive substances, but that a later correction indicated that the word "no" should have been inserted before "radioactive substances." She asked for copies of the Committee's document request on these studies as well as any DOE responses, and offered to consult on possible additional requests. Lois Camp, who also spoke in San Francisco, corroborated stories of men in white coats coming into classrooms and painting students' throats -- she presumed it a thyroid study of some sort. She noted that she and other classmates had deformed fingernails, and Battelle supplied the public schools with chemicals to fix them. Iris Hedmond recalled that Battelle brought a mobile whole-body counter to the local school and collected data on students' diets. She said she thought the then-schoolchildren would be relatively easy to find and noted that some had received certificates for their participation in this study. (A copy of the certificate obtained by staff is attached to this memorandum.) Amchitka Island Bev Aleck of the Alaska Laborers Union described the series of underground and below sea-level tests that occurred at Amchitka Island in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. She said that dozens of workers who dug and plugged leaks in the test tunnels died of leukemia and other cancers from radiation exposure. She said that documents describing their exposures remain classified. She said that because workers were employed by a contractor rather than the federal government, they were not covered by legislation that established the presumption that certain cancers were caused by exposure to atomic testing. Veterans Kathy Jacobovitch said her father had been exposed to radiation as part of his decontamination work [at Bremerton Naval Shipyard,] and was studied afterwards. She attributed her medical conditions (including lupus) to his radiation exposure. (She said she was "a fetus" during the period he was being exposed.) She reported no difficulty in obtaining his medical records. David Vanderbilt testified to his participation in Operation Plumbbob at the Nevada Test Site. Radiation Therapy Joanne Watts reported that she had been treated in 1945 at the age of 15 in St. Luke's Hospital in Denver. She had a blood condition; the doctor was uncertain if it was leukemia, but recommended radiation treatments to the leg bones to stimulate blood production. Her father consented to the controversial treatment, and her condition improved. She suggested that some of her medical conditions -- including ovarian cancer and fibroid tumors -- might be due to this therapy. 4 Charles Lombard described his treatment using radioactive implants for tongue and throat cancers. Radiation Hazards Wendell Ogg, a health physicist from Oak Ridge who attended the meeting and spoke as a private citizen, argued that the risks of low-level radiation were exaggerated. He cited a University of Wisconsin study that nuclear shipyard workers exposed to more than 5 rem had lower cancer mortality than those with lower exposures. A listing of public comment participants is attached. 5 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENT Panel Meeting Spokane, Washington November 21, 1994 9:00 a.m. Call to Order Jerry Garcia 9:05 a.m. Welcome and Introduction Dr. Reed Tuckson, Chair, Outreach Subcommittee Dr. Duncan Thomas, Committee member Dr. Susan Lederer, Committee member Dr. Henry Royal, Committee member 9:15 to 10:30 GROUP ONE . Mr. Leonard Schroeter, Seattle, WA . Mrs. Gertie Hanson, Citizen Against Nuclear Weapons and Exterminations . Mr. Al Conklin, Department of Health, State of Washington . Mr. Harold Bibeau, Portland, OR . Ms. Catherine Knox, Department of Corrections, Oregon . Mr. Jim Thomas, Seattle, WA 10:30 to 10:40 Break 10:40 to 12:15 P.M. GROUP TWO . Ms. Trisha Pritikin, Berkeley, CA . Mr. Fredrick William Larson, Ocean Park, WA . Mrs. Brenda Weaver, Spokane, WA . Mr. Tom Bailie, Mesa, WA . Mr. Lynn Grover & Mrs. Michelle Grover, Mesa, WA . Mr. Geoffrey Sea, International Radiation Injury Survivors, Oakland, CA 12:15 P.M. to 1:15 Lunch 1 1:15 to 2:30 GROUP THREE . Mrs. Kathy Jacobovitch, Vashon Island, WA . Mrs. JoAnne Watts, Grants Pass, OR . Mrs. Theresa Potts, Couer d'Alene, ID and Mr. Tom Cooper, Couer d'Alene, ID . Mrs. Kay Sutherland, Walla Walla, WA . Mrs. Beverly Aleck, Anchorage, Alaska . Ms. Sherri Lozon, Nez Pierce Tribe 2:30 to 2:40 Break 2:40 to 4:10 GROUP FOUR . Mrs. Jeanne Haycraft, Enterprise, OR . Ms. Darcy Thrall, Benton City, WA . Ms. Lynne Stembridge, Hanford Education Action League . Mrs. Lois Camp, LaCrosse, WA . Ms. Lynn Horn & Mr. Charlie Miller, Spokane, WA . Mr. Charles Lombard, Spokane, WA 4:10 to 4:20 Break 4:20 to 5:30 GROUP FIVE . Mr. Curt Leslie, Wallua, WA . Mr. Rex Harter, Mesa, WA . Mr. David Vanderbilt, Ione, WA . Mr. Wendell Ogg, Knoxville, TN . Mrs. Iris Hedman Othello, WA 2