Radiation Tests Still Go On, O’Leary Says

Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary said Tuesday that the government continues to sponsor radiation experiments involving human subjects but that none is being done in secret or without the informed consent of participants.

The acknowledgment came in testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is investigating radiation experiments performed by the government, often on unwitting participants, in the 1940s and ‘50s. O’Leary told committee members that the full extent and nature of those experiments probably would not be determined for at least a year. But she added that all of the information eventually would be made public.

O’Leary said that the Energy Department now is either funding or providing facilities for between 200 and 260 experiments, about 40% of which are believed to involve radiation. Most of the current experimentation involves the use of low tracer doses in nuclear medicine research, she said.

None of the experiments are being conducted in secret or in violation of ethical guidelines--in effect since 1991--that govern the terms of such experiments on humans, she said.

“We’re pretty certain that everyone is following the spirit and intent” of the ethics guidelines, she said.

O’Leary said that as a precautionary measure President Clinton will issue a directive this week ordering a halt to any classified experiments involving radiation and human subjects. But she said she does not believe that such experimentation is under way.

“As far as we have been able to ascertain, the department is not conducting any experiments that violate medical (or) ethical standards,” she said.

The hearing is the first in what is expected to be several congressional inquiries into disclosures that unsuspecting subjects were used as human guinea pigs for government-sponsored radiation experiments during the Cold War.