NATION/WORLD
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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, January 12, 1994
13
Secret radiation tests revealed
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Nearly 1,000 research radiation studies and research projects were conducted at veterans hospitals in 1955 and 1956 alone, government records show.
But the Department of Veterans Affairs cannot say how many people were wittingly or unwittingly exposed to radioactive isotopes in them or other experiments at VA hospitals between 1947 and 1979.
"Right now, we do not know," VA Secretary Jesse Brown said Monday. "We don't even know what they were."
we don't ever know who they were.
Annual reports published by the old Veterans Administration, which was replaced by Brown's department in 1989, show that 399 radioisotope studies or research projects were carried out in 1955, and 560 were conducted in 1956.
Brown said in an interview with Associated Press Radio that he didn't
know whether any of them or the others since 1947 are among the 800 radiation tests on humans disclosed last month by Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary.
They "could, in fact, maybe have taken place in the VA on some unsuspecting veterans." Brown said. "That is what we are looking at."
But VA documents indicate that its secret atomic medicine program and more public radioisotope programs begun in 1947 were intended to complement research by the Atomic Energy Commission, predecessor to the Energy Department.
In the years following World War II, the VA was a pioneer in the use of medical radioisotopes for diagnosing and treating a wide variety of ailments, including dysfunctional thyroid glands, brain tumors, leukemia and other cancers.
By 1951, 14 VA hospitals had established radioisotope laboratories, and
by 1958, the number of such facilities at VA hospitals had risen to 48. Donna St. John, a department spokeswoman, said all 48 of those facilities have not been identified.
While about half of the VA activities involved diagnosis and treatment, "the main contributions that radioisotopes can make to medical care will be as a tool in biological and medical research," the agency said in 1947.
Although such experiments were first approved by a local committee that included outside representatives, reviews by VA headquarters did not begin until the 1960s.
Based on the records collected so far, veterans were informed about the research in some of the projects. But the VA is not sure that all were informed, and it acknowledged that there often was no effort to keep track of the patients' medical histories.
While early research under the
"radioisotope program" was disclosed, Brown expressed frustured that the more inclusive "atomic medicine program" was classified as confidential out of concern over service-connected disability claims.
According to agency records, the earliest experiments took place at VA hospitals in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Cleveland, Chicago and Framingham, Mass.
The Veterans Affairs Department already has received records from some hospitals and expects to have enough within a month to piece together some kind of pattern on "what was taking place." Brown said.
The VA set up a toll-free telephone hotline (1-800-827-1000) last month, seeking information from any veteran who may have participated in the studies or relatives with knowledge of them, but so far has received little response.
BRUSSELS, Belgium
NATO leaders warn of possible air strikes to assist Muslims
After months of empty threats, President Clinton and his NATO allies warned Serb forces yesterday of a new determination to launch air strikes if needed to relieve embattled Muslim enclaves in Bosnia. "My resolve is there," Clinton said.
At the end of a two-day summit, the 16 Western leaders announced their willingness to order bombing raids If Bosnian Serbs continue to prevent the opening of a major airport for aid supplies or the rotation of encircled peace keepers.
"Whether they occur or not depends upon the behavior of the Bosnian Serbs from this moment forward," Clinton told reporters at the end of the meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"The offer is there." NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner said. "The door is open."
"I think they will clearly understand that this is a very serious proposal that opens the possibility of membership — not one that limits it," said Clinton.
From Brussels, Clinton flew to the Czech capital Prague to try to sell leaders of that new democracy, as well as Poland and Hungary, on the alliance's plan for limited partnerships.
The three nations, worried about ethnic strife and political turmoil spreading in their region, have repeatedly asked for full membership in the alliance and the security guarantees that would go with it.
Under NATO's 1949 treaty, members agree to consider an armed attack on any one of its members as an attack on all.
THE NEWS in brief
PRETORIA, South Africa
Violence concerns leaders
ANC leader Nelson Mandela ruled out a white homeland in South Africa, but said yesterday that he was confident pro-apartheid whites would return to negotiations with his Black group.
Mandela spoke after four hours of private talks with President F.W. de Klerk. The discussions focused on political violence in black townships and pro-apartheid parties opposed to the country's first multiracial election in April.
The Afrikaner Volksfront, a coalition of pro-apartheid parties, pulled out of talks Monday with the ANC because it rejected demands for a sovereign state for Afrikaners, descendants of white Dutch settlers.
"We will never concede to the demand for a separate Afrikaner homeland," Mandela said at a brief news conference after his meeting with de Klerk.
The African National Congress is expected to win the April election. Pro-apartheid groups say an ANC government will turn South Africa into a communist dictatorship and ruin the African culture.
Parliament divided by reforms
On the eve of the opening of Russia's first post-Soviet parliament, President Boris Yeltsin's supporters threatened Monday to prosecute ultranationalists and blamed Communists for the deaths of millions of people.
Intended to mark a new chapter in Russia's young democracy, the new parliament already is deeply divided, with extreme nationalists and Communists determined to undo Yeltsin's reforms.
MOSCOW
Russia's Choice, the main bloc supporting Yeltsin, said it would try to make parliament members face criminal responsibility for statements that incite hatred or violence.
The threat was aimed at Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whose Liberal Democratic Party won 23 percent of the vote in last month's election.
Comet to strike Jupiter in July
WASHINGTON
Astronomers around the world are tuning up their telescopes for the first scientific observation ever of a large comet smashing into a planet, an event that happens perhaps only once in a thousand years.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, now broken up into at least 21 large chunks, crashes into Jupiter in July, hitting that gaseous planet with aeries of impacts more violent than any atomic bomb ever exploded.
More than 200 astronomers from observatories all over the world met Monday at the University of Maryland just outside Washington to plan a coordinated program designed to capture the split-second flashes of light that will occur when the comet impacts Jupiter.
"Every person with a telescope large enough will be trying to observe it," said University of Maryland astronomer Lucy McFadden, the organizer of the meeting. "Even amateur telescopes may be able to see something."
Compiled from The Associated Press.
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