Contaminated Nation: Inhuman Radiation Experiments
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15857-contaminated-nation-inhuman-radiation-experiments
Contaminated Nation: Inhuman Radiation Experiments
Sunday, 21 April 2013 09:38
By John LaForge, Counterpunch | News Analysis
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the declassification of top secret studies, done over a period of 60 years, in which the US conducted 2,000 radiation experiments on as many as 20,000 vulnerable US citizens.[1]
Victims included civilians, prison inmates, federal workers, hospital patients, pregnant women, infants, developmentally disabled children and military personnel most of them powerless, poor, sick, elderly or terminally ill. Eileen Welsomes 1999 exposé The Plutonium Files: Americas Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War details the unspeakable scientific trials that reduced thousands of men, women, and even children to nameless specimens.[2]
The program employed industry and academic scientists who used their hapless patients or wards to see the immediate and short-term effects of radioactive contamination with everything from plutonium to radioactive arsenic.[3] The human subjects were mostly poisoned without their knowledge or consent.
An April 17, 1947 memo by Col. O.G. Haywood of the Army Corps of Engineers explained why the studies were classified. It is desired that no document be released which refers to experiments with humans and might have adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits.[4]