Nuclear Research Yielded Progress, ‘Dark Side’ Agency Review Finds 435 Experiments, Involving 16,000 People

The Energy Department, completing its review of decades of government-sponsored nuclear experiments, has concluded that while some were ethically questionable, the research contributed enormously to the foundations of modern medical science, Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary said Thursday.

The department’s final tally, released Thursday, shows that some 16,000 people were the subjects of 435 documented trials between World War II and the mid-1970s. The agency has been leading a government-wide study of the experiments since they were disclosed by O’Leary 18 months ago.

Many of the experiments were conducted “to go after breakthroughs on the medical front,” O’Leary told reporters.

Tara O’Toole, an assistant Energy secretary, said that while the research “raises ethical questions, it’s also really quite a heroic and amazing story of progress.” The experiments were instrumental in diagnosing and treating thyroid problems, cancer, heart disease and an array of other conditions, O’Toole said.

“You can see the history of modern medicine riven through these experiments,” she said.

But O’Leary also said there was a “dark side” to the research: Some of the experiments, shrouded in secrecy for decades, were conducted on subjects without their full understanding or on vulnerable populations such as children and prisoners.

“The culture of secrecy was so deeply embedded,” she said. The experiments were carried out by the Energy Department and its predecessor agencies, including the Atomic Energy Commission.

The department’s review leaves unanswered ethical questions raised by its findings. A presidential commission, whose report is expected next month, is to assess those questions.

Draft chapters of the commission’s findings show medical experts were aware of ethical concerns.Twice in 1947, the general manager of the Atomic Energy Commission wrote to Stafford Warren, a scientist who served on the medical research team for the Manhattan Project, telling him that “clinical testing” should go forward only if there is a prospect the patient could benefit medically and after the patient had been informed and gave consent.