INTERIM REPORT
                                 OF THE
                          ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON
                       HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS

                            OCTOBER 21, 1994


                                CONTENTS


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION
     Charge and Mandate
     How the Committee Functions
     The Committee's Approach
     Tasks and Strategies:  An Overview of the First Six Months
     and the Interim Report

PART I.   AREAS OF INQUIRY: THE FRAMEWORK AND PIECES OF THE
          PUZZLE
     A.   The Problem:  Widely Dispersed and Fragmentary
          Information
     B.   Biomedical Experiments:  1944-1974
          1.   Phase I:  Mapping Experiments and the World in
               Which They Were Set
               a.  Experiment Database
               b.  Ethics Policies and Practices
               c.  Institutional Mapping
               d.  Scientific Standards Timeline
          2.   Phase II:  Focus on Specific Experiments and Their
               Context
               a.   Biomedical Experiments
               b.   Institutional Case Studies
     C.   Intentional Releases
     D.   A Note on Scope
     E.   The Contemporary Story
          1.  Subject Interview Study
          2.  Research Proposal Review Project
          3.  Agency Oversight Review
          
PART II.  THE AGENCY SEARCH PROCESS AND OTHER METHODS OF INQUIRY:
          THE HUNT FOR PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
     A.   The Agency Search Process
          1.   Initial Reports
          2.   Committee Assessment
          3.   Committee Work with Agencies on Search Strategy
          4.   Classified Documents
     B.   Additional Methods of Inquiry
          1.  Documentary Search
          2.  Ethics Oral History Project and Interview Project
 
PART III. OUTREACH

PART IV.  INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ACCESS

PART V.   TAKING STOCK: SOME INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
     A.   Openness
     B.   Organizing the Secret and Public Worlds of Human
          Radiation Experiments
     C.  Historical Discovery
          1.   Government Ethics Debate and Policy
          2.   Discovery of the Present in the Past
          3.   Government Rediscovery of its Past
     D.   Public Access to the Records of our Past
     E.   Challenges to Reconstructing the Past
          1.   Agency Searches Are Time Consuming
          2.   Data on Experiments Are Fragmentary
          3.   Loss or Destruction of Important Document
               Collections
          4.   Classification 

PART VI.  THE NEXT SIX MONTHS 
     A.   Work to be Done     
          1.   Continuation of Present Tasks
          2.   Identification of Relevant Ethics Standards
          3.   Considerations and Criteria for a Range of
               Remedies
          4.   Recommendations on Policies for Future Research
     B. Timing of Final Report

APPENDIXES
     A    Executive Order
     B    Charter
     C    Committee Roster
     D    Meeting Dates and Locations
     E    Summary of Agency Records Retrieval
     F    Information Management

TERMS AND ACRONYMS




Interim Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation
Experiments, October 21, 1994