Cut The Red Tape And Do Right Thing

The men are not pillars of the community. They murdered and robbed people, sold drugs. They are living, or once lived, in penitentiaries in Washington and Oregon. They are men most in society would like to forget.

But they were also human guinea pigs in the 1960s and early 1970s. Their testicles were bombarded with X-rays as part of Atomic Energy Commission experiments, during the Cold War, to see how much radiation a body could endure.

Now the men, about 130 of them, are older. Some have died. Some remain behind bars. Some are out of prison. Some have longterm physical and emotional fallout from the experiments.

U.S. Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary has condemned the government’s role in human experiments during the Cold War, and she has said the victims should be compensated.

The state of Oregon is trying to identify, find and treat prisoners used in the radiation experiments. But Washington state officials are doing little to track down the former guinea pigs. No one knows how many of the men are out there, suffering with cancer or other physical ailments. No one knows, and few seem to care. After all, the men were part of society’s lowlife. Criminals.

This attitude must change or we are no better, in the 1990s, than the Nazis who experimented on human prisoners in the 1940s.

The first person who needs an attitude change is Dr. C. Alvin Paulsen of Seattle. He was the University of Washington researcher who conducted many of the experiments. The irradiated inmates remember that Paulsen told them he would always be available for follow-up care. Yet former inmates, who have tried to contact him, have been rebuffed, they say.

Paulsen has also said he won’t release the names of inmates, due to confidentiality rules. Washington state Health Officer Dr. Mimi Fields has asked for Paulsen’s records. Paulsen needs to open up about the past, cooperate with health officials. He must quit washing his hands of the past.

Oregon state officials have created a plan to track and examine their 67 current and former inmates. They have asked O’Leary to pay for it, which is right, because it was the federal government that first hatched the idea of these horrible experiments.

Washington state officials should follow the Oregon example. They need a plan. They cannot let the paperwork intimidate them. Or the threat of lawsuits. Or the fact that the men whose testicles were X-rayed did not wear business suits and belong to the Rotary Club.

They are human beings, for God’s sake. And it’s time to right the wrong done to them decades ago.