The Human Radiation Experiments

About the Committee:On January 15, 1994, President Clinton appointed the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to investigate reports of possibly unethical experiments funded by the government decades ago. The members of the Advisory Committee included fourteen private citizens from around the country: a representative of the general public, and thirteen experts in bioethics, radiation oncology and biology, nuclear medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics, public health, history of science andmedicine, and law. The Advisory Committee submitted its final report to the President in late 1995, and this book contains the entire text of the report. It also includes the full text of the President's remarks in acceptance of the report and a complete index.

"The committee has built an archive that will be of invaluable use to anyone concerned with the past or future of human experimentation, indeed, to anyone intent on keeping government responsive to its citizens."--Journal of the American Medical Association"Excellent. Comprehensive, detailed, authoritative and clear ly written."--Canadian Medical Association Journal"...an intriguing read: part cold war history, part careful review of voluminous files, part commentary on the status of human subjects research historically and in the contemporary period, and part illustration of the state of bioethics research methodology as applied to public policy."--Hastings Center Report

• PART I: ETHICS OF HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ; 1. Government Standards for Human Experiments: The 1940s and 1950s ; 2. Postwar Professional Standards and Practices for Human Experiments ; 3. Government Standards for Human Experiments: The 1960s and 1970s ; 4. Ethics Standards in Retrospect ; PART II: CASE STUDIES ; 5. Experiments with Plutonium, Uranium, and Polonium ; 6. The AEC Program of Radioisotope Distribution ; 7. Nontherapeutic Research in Children ; 8. Total-Body Irradiation: Problems When Research and Treatment are Intertwined ; 9. Prisoners: A Captive Research Population ; 10. Atomic Veterans: Human Experimentation in Connection with Bomb Tests ; 11. Intentional Releases: Lifting the Veil of Security ; 12. Observational Data Gathering ; 13. Secrecy, Human Radiation Experiments, and Intentional Releases ; PART III: CONTEMPORARY PROJECTS ; 14. Current Federal Policies Governing Human Subjects Research ; 15. Research Proposal Review Project ; 16. Subject Interview Study ; Discussion of Part III ; PART IV. COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST, LOOKING AHEAD TO THE FUTURE: FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ; 17. Findings ; 18. Recommendations