WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED – LA CITYBEAT
Another ethically troubling study was conducted in the summer of 1953 by the UCLA “Tolerance Section,” and was called “Survey of Irradiation Exposure to the Gonadal Region in Man.” The report, marked “Confidential,” utilized “a large number of university students” who were subjected to 480 separate X-rays. Forty-one Atomic Energy Project personnel were also X-rayed as part of the testing. The experiment also called for the “roentgenographic [X-ray] examination of children from the newborn to the age of 12.” The X-ray doses the kids received depended on which category they were in: infants, ages 2-7 or 7-12, with the dosage basically doubling for each older age group.
The University of California was the second-largest university recipient of startup AEC funds, with $500,000 going to UCLA in the ’40s. In 1947, the head of the UCLA AEC project, medical school dean Dr. Stafford Warren, addressed the ethical dilemma of patient notification and permission, at least as far as adults go. Warren wasn’t about to be hampered by this thing called consent, according to the book Undue Risk – Secret State Experiments on Humans. AEC lawyers wanted a written patient “release” for radiation experimentation, but Warren beat back the consensual release regulations. Instead, two doctors “would certify in writing to the patient’s state of mind to the explanation furnished him and to the acceptance of the treatment.”
In a clinical report from the summer of 1961, a UCLA doctor justified radiation-induced human cancers, as long as the lab environment was safe for the scientists: “The evidence for induction of cancer by inhaled radioactive materials in experimental animals is convincing. There is no reason to think this cannot occur in man despite the lack of definitive evidence at present. Therefore, continued study of inhalation hazards is urgent, and the continuation of stringent environmental control measures is justified pending the completion of adequate studies.”
In other words, UCLA doctors and scientists knew inhaled radiation was probably cancerous for humans, but they had to do radiation tests on people to prove it. When the university got its new Total Body Counter Facility in 1961 – a bank-vault-like device that could measure radiation on the whole body of large subjects like humans or burros – one report noted: “From the beginning however, it was generally recognized that equipment to meet such emergency needs would be equally valuable in studying gamma-emitting radioisotopes intentionally [their emphasis] administered to human subjects for purposes of research or medical diagnosis.”
Given this extensive human radiation testing, what to do with bodies became a concern at the VA and UCLA. Records gleaned from the 1982 FOIA request to the VA indicate one 1964 meeting of the VA Center Radioisotope Committee that discussed “safe handling of cadavers containing radioactive isotopes.” The committee’s conclusions were blacked out by FOIA censors.
Other parts of this FOIA were blacked out but with an explanation. In a 1982 letter from the federal district counsel to the Los Angeles Federation of Scientists, which had submitted the FOIA request, the government wrote: “That information was withheld on the basis of potential employee misconduct leading to a civil and/or criminal investigation.” There is not, however, any evidence that human remains are in the dump.
This wasn’t the last time the government blackened out documents and hid information regarding the Brentwood nuclear waste site. That information may be crucial to development considerations when assessing the VA property and its forgotten dump.
*
Michael Collins is a frequent contributor to CityBeat. For comprehensive information, documents, and photographs on the Brentwood dump, see his website, EnviroReporter.com.
