White House Hesitant on Radiation Test Liability : Science: Clinton aide is careful not to concede guilt of government. Cold War experiments involved 800 people.
Clinton Administration officials, faced with a legally complex and potentially costly legacy of Cold War-era radiation testing on humans, Monday sought to postpone any conclusions about government guilt or liability in the experiments.
After the first of a planned series of high-level meetings on the subject, White House Communications Director Mark D. Gearan acknowledged that troubling questions have been raised about tests that used the elderly, prisoners and retarded children as subjects.
But he was careful not to concede that government researchers’ liability had been established. “If we determine through this process . . . that American people were wronged as a result of this government-sponsored experimentation . . . we would have to consider the kind of assistance and compensation that would be appropriate,” Gearan told reporters.
Asked directly if there was any question that Americans had been “wronged,” Gearan said: “It would be premature for me to make that kind of judgment.”
Government liability for the experiments has been an issue since last month, when Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary began to disclose testing programs that the government estimates included at least 800 people.
In Energy Department experiments between the 1940s and 1970s, patients were injected with plutonium, uranium salts and other radioactive substances, apparently in many cases without their informed consent.
O’Leary’s statements seemed to suggest she had concluded that the government had acted improperly. She said last month that she “tended to agree personally that those people who have been wronged need to be compensated.”
Administration officials said they did not intend to repudiate O’Leary’s views and, rather, sought to portray the White House and Energy Department in complete agreement on the matter.
The disclosures have yielded a political windfall for the Administration, demonstrating a willingness to disclose possible government misdeeds. Yet acknowledgment of wrongdoing could prompt a plethora of damage claims from plaintiffs who maintain that they may have been injured by the government’s programs.
Indeed, some plaintiff’s lawyers, including attorneys pressing class-action lawsuits that assert injury from windborne or waterborne radiation, already have declared that the cases strengthen their legal positions.
“These issues are identical,” said Stanley Chesley, a Cincinnati lawyer handling a number of radiation lawsuits. “The victims are the same and the issues are the same.”
However, plaintiffs have found courts frequently unwilling to concede the government’s liability, arguing that the government could not be sued for acts performed in good faith.
Government officials are taking the position that some of the victims’ injuries might be dealt with through medical assistance, rather than through cash payments. Gearan’s statements that the Administration would consider appropriate “assistance” reflected that view, said one official.
Despite their concern about premature conclusions of government wrongdoing, Administration officials are pleased at the political payoff. “It has struck a chord with the American people, and it does communicate to the American people what this Administration is all about,” said one official.
Officials did not hesitate to place blame at the doorstep of their predecessors. The first disclosures of the testing came in a report from Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who raised questions about the experiments in a 1986 report.
“Two Administrations have failed to answer these questions,” Gearan said. “And we intended to step up to the plate.”
One official said that the Administration has not yet even talked about how much the liability could ultimately cost. “We are just trying to set that issue aside till we collect and analyze information,” the official said.
Gearan also outlined an elaborate fact-finding effort, aimed at combing the records of at least four agencies, that likely will take many weeks to reach conclusions about the nature of the experiments and the government’s liability. “This is the first step,” he said.
Attending the session were senior White House officials and senior aides from the defense, energy, justice and veterans affairs departments, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Office of Management and Budget. The review also will consider activities of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gearan said.
A meeting of Cabinet members on the task force’s effort is expected in three weeks, he said.
