Frisco Navy Lab’smHuman Radiation Experiments
San Francisco Public Press & The Guardian
- Revealed: how a San Francisco navy lab became a hub for human radiation experiments
- Operations at a cold war lab exposed at least 1,073 people to radiation. Risks to the nearby communities persist
Chris Roberts, San Francisco Public Press
Mon 25 Nov 2024 14.00 EST
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Between 1946 and 1963, this article reports, lab scientists knowingly exposed at least 1,073 servicemen, dockworkers, lab employees and others to potentially harmful radiation through war games, decontamination tests and medical studies at the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory at San Francisco’s Hunters Point naval shipyard. A review by the San Francisco Public Press of thousands of pages of government and academic records as well as interviews with affected servicemen reveal:
… [T]he lab conducted at least 24 experiments that exposed humans to radiation, far more than past official reviews acknowledged. Safety reports also note dozens of accidents in which staff received doses in excess of federal health limits in effect at the time. Researchers at the lab tracked the exposure of workers trying to clean ships irradiated by an atomic bomb test. Soldiers were ordered to crawl through fields of radioactive sand and soil. In clinical studies, radioactive substances were applied to forearms and hands, injected or administered by mouth. Top US civilian and military officials pre-approved all of this in writing, documents show. The records indicate that researchers gained limited knowledge from this program, and that not everyone involved had their exposure monitored. There is also no sign the lab studied the long-term health effects on people used in the experiments or in surrounding communities, either during the lab’s heyday or after it closed in 1969.
This article reports that the Navy’s San Francisco lab was “a major cold war research facility with a unique focus on ‘radiological defense,’ techniques developed to help the public survive and armed forces fight back in case of an atomic attack. It was one node in a nationwide network that encompassed universities, hospitals and national labs that had permission to handle dangerous radioactive material.”
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No study of the “long-term health effects on people used in the experiments or in surrounding communities, either during the lab’s heyday or after it closed in 1969.”
Well, let’s go back and studied it NOW!
This is “Yet Another Example” of how the Gooferment politicians and bureaucrats treat Veterans and the general population. Like lab rats. Not even given any human dignity. Let alone “informed consent”.
It’s not too late to rectify this grave error.
Maybe if the guilty get punishment, the it could deter future bad behavior?
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 