The US government never subjected citizens to secret radiation experiments
| The US government never subjected citizens to secret radiation experiments | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "The US government did not expose American citizens to radiation in experiments without their knowledge or consent." | |
| Domain | Health & Medicine |
| Tactic | Fabrication |
| Era | Historical |
| First seen | 1940s |
| Origin | Decades of government secrecy, until disclosures by Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary in December 1993 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-11-01 |
| Further reading: books on Health & Medicine | |
During the Cold War, US government agencies sponsored thousands of experiments involving radiation, many on people who did not know or were not told the risks. They included injecting hospital patients with plutonium, feeding radioactive substances to children at a state school and giving radioactive iron to pregnant women.
The experiments became widely known after reporter Eileen Welsome identified plutonium injection subjects in 1993 and Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary opened the records.
What the evidence shows
- Plutonium injections. From 1945 to 1947, 18 hospital patients were injected with plutonium to study its effects, without informed consent.
- Children. At the Fernald State School in Massachusetts in the late 1940s and 1950s, boys were given breakfast cereal containing radioactive tracers in a study sponsored by Quaker Oats and conducted by MIT researchers.
- Pregnant women. At Vanderbilt University in the 1940s, more than 800 pregnant women were given drinks containing radioactive iron.
- Official finding. The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments reported in October 1995 that many experiments violated ethical standards. President Bill Clinton apologized on October 3, 1995.
Why it matters
The experiments were hidden for decades. Their disclosure led to compensation and stronger rules on consent in government-funded research.
Sources
- Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Final Report, October 1995.
- Eileen Welsome, The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War, Dial Press, 1999.
- William J. Clinton, remarks on the report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, October 3, 1995.