ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS PUBLIC COMMENT OUTREACH PANEL MEETING October 21, 1994 Cincinnati, Ohio USA BUNN & ASSOCIATES Registered Professional Reporters Worldwide 81 Bixby Road Post Office Box 1602 Glenrock, Wyoming 82637 USA In USA 1-800-435-2468 Worldwide 001-307-436-2468 Worldwide Telefax 001-307-436-5733 PANEL MEMBERS: REED V. TUCKSON, M.D., Panel Chair President Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science Los Angeles, California USA LOIS L. NORRIS Community Representative Institutional Review Board University of Nebraska Retired Second Vice-President Omaha National Bank and Omaha National Corporation Omaha, Nebraska USA MARY ANN STEVENSON, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology Joint Center for Radiation Therapy Deputy Chief, Department of Radiation Oncology New England Deaconess Hospital Harvard Medical School Boston, Massachusetts USA I N D E X Page OPENING REMARKS 5 TESTIMONY OF: ROBERT PORTMAN 16 Member U.S. House of Representatives GWENDON PLAIR 21 DORIS JEAN BAKER 25 GLORIA NELSON 31 RICHARD CASEY 37 LISA CRAWFORD 45 HERBERT VARIN 52 LESLIE LYNCH 61 MARTHA STEPHENS 71 BOB PHILLIPS 82 LILLIAN PAGANO 84 SHERRY BRABANT 85 OTISTEEN GOODWIN CLIFFORD TIDWELL 93 OWEN THOMPSON 104 JOSEPH STEGER 116 President University of Cincinnati STAN CHESLEY 120 DAVID THOMPSON 133 KENNETH KENDALL 138 I N D E X (Continued) Page TOM WILKINSON 150 TOM ROW 156 JOE LARKINS 168 MONICA RAY 172 GENE BRANHAM 175 DOROTHY SWENTY 193 PAT WHEELER 196 KATHERINE HAGER 198 ROBERT HAGER 201 WILLIAM CUMMINS 223 RUTH BLAZ 240 MANUEL BLAZ 250 JACKIE KITTRELL 256 Attorney ANN HOPKINS 265 through MARY MUELLER 265 DARYL KIMBALL 277 VINA COLLEY 285 DIANA SALSBURY 296 GEOFFREY SEA BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS A public meeting was held pursuant to Notice at the Regal Cincinnati Hotel, 141 West Sixth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, commencing on the 21st day of October, 1994, at 9:40 a.m. ET. Present: Reed Tuckson, Chair; Lois Norris; Mary Ann Stevenson. Also present: Steve Klaidman, Jerry Garcia, and Kristin Crotty. TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS MR. GARCIA: Good morning. Welcome. As the designated federal employee, I hereby call this meeting to order. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you. Good morning. We are very sorry for the delay, but apparently there were some technical concerns with the media and the microphones that had to be resolved. My name is Dr. Reed Tuckson, and I am in my regular working life the President of the Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science working in south-central Los Angeles. Here in this capacity I serve as the Chair of the Outreach Committee on the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. This Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was created by President Clinton last April twenty-first, for the purpose of advising his inter-agency working group, and to advise him, on the ethical and scientific criteria applicable to human radiation experiments carried out or sponsored by the United States Government. Let me give a sense of the definition of "human radiation experiments" as defined by our charter. They are, 1. Experiments on individuals involving intentional exposure to ionizing radiation. This category does not include common or routine clinical practices; And number two, experiments that involved intentional releases of radiation that were designed to test human health effects of ionizing radiation or were designed to test the extent of human exposure to ionizing radiation. Our Advisory Committee of 14 persons, of whom three are with us today, and one member, and several members of our staff, include a diverse group of Americans with expertise in bioethics, radiation oncology and biology, the history of medicine and science, epidemiology, public health, nuclear medicine, and law. We even have a, as a citizen member, Lois Norris, who is with us today, and you will meet her in just a moment. Let me help to orient our audience on the issues that this subcommittee is struggling with. There are four fundamental questions that our committee is grappling. Number one, we seek to determine what is the Federal Government's involvement in wrongs or harms that may have been done as a result of human radiation experimentation. Number two, we are seeking to determine the criteria for and the range of remedies that are due those who have been wronged or harmed. Number three, we seek to determine what lessons can be learned from studying past and present research standards and practices, and how to best apply them in the future. And fourth, we seek to develop ethical criteria that can be properly applied to human radiation experiments. Let me emphasize: We are a public advisory committee, in that all of our deliberations are done in the open. All of your deliberations are part of public forums. We actively seek and greatly appreciate the experiences, the guidance, and the suggestions of the American people in general, and of the victims of radiation exposure and their advocates in particular. The majority of our meetings have been held and conducted in Washington, D.C., with very deliberate attention paid to opportunities for public comment. However, we are well aware that it might be difficult for many people who have something to say about these important matters to travel great distances to Washington, D.C. As such, we have recently convened hearings in San Francisco of our full committee of 14, where the majority of the time was spent in public testimony. We will, are scheduled to hold hearings in the next coming few weeks and months in Spokane, Washington, and in the Albuquerque/Santa Fe area. Today is an important day in the history of our committee. This is the halfway point in our journey, and I cannot think of a more appropriate place for us to be on this day when we will also release our mid-year report. We will have available, we hope, copies of our mid-year report sometime this afternoon. You must appreciate that the document was completed late last evening in Washington. It is being put on airplanes, I understand, today, and they are being shipped out to us. I cannot guarantee, because I just don't know whether we will have copies enough for every member of the audience today. Certainly we will have them available for the media as they attempt to do their job of informing the American people as to the nature of our status at this point. I can assure the audience that you will be able to get your own copy of it in due course if we cannot have enough copies for you today. We are truly grateful to those of you who chose to join us today. We will listen to you carefully and we will ask you questions as we better attempt to understand what you, what your message and your wisdom is to us. We have several members of our staff here. Would the staff please identify themselves? Because it just -- would you wave and so forth? These people are here to help you, and if you have material or other things that you need to give us in the, other than the testimony, they stand ready to be of assistance to you. They are here for one purpose, and one purpose only: to get from you that which you came to give us. We can assure you, also, that we are recording and transcribing every word that is said here, and we can assure you that what you say today will have great influence on our full committee as it proceeds now into the heart of its work. We are at the halfway point, as I said. We have a final report to give next April 21 to the President. We have a long way to go. We are still in the process, and so what you say to us today will have an impact on that process. With me today are two distinguished members of our committee, Mary Ann Stevenson and Lois Norris. They will introduce themselves in just a moment. But a word of reminder to you about our process: We as a Committee have not reached any final conclusions. We are still in the process of gathering information. We are poring through copies of records, reams of data from various cabinet departments. We are consulting with people widely. We are listening to you today. We are not at the present time where we are prepared to reach or announce conclusions. That would be inappropriate for us in this forum today, and it would be inappropriate for the Committee as a whole. This is a process. And I want to finally emphasize again that the information, the wisdom, the guidance, the suggestions that you share with us today will be very much a part of that process. And now let me turn to Mary Ann Stevenson to introduce herself to you and make a few words of introduction. DR. STEVENSON: Thank you, Reed. My name's Mary Ann Stevenson. I'm Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. My clinical work on a daily basis involves the care and treatment, care for and treatment of cancer patients with a variety of malignancies. I'd like to echo Dr. Tuckson's welcome to you all today and I'll say how important the committee members feel these public comment sessions are for our work. Those of you who are familiar with your task are aware of the overwhelming volume of documents that the Committee has already examined, and the countless others that remain to be examined. These public comment sessions help us put a human face on that piece of paper. I also want to thank all of you for the great personal effort you put into coming here today. We truly appreciate the physical and emotional strain that these meetings can bring to everyone involved, and are grateful for your willingness to share your stories and your experiences with us. And we will listen with great interest. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you. And, Lois Norris. MS. NORRIS: I'm Lois Norris, and as Reed noted, I am the non-scientist member, the public member of the Committee. In real life, before I chose to retire from the corporate world, I was a bank officer for 20 years with the Omaha National Bank in Omaha, Nebraska. Since then I have served as a member of the Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects of the University of Nebraska for the last ten years. I can only reiterate or support or second what the other esteemed members of this Committee have said. We are very grateful to you for being here. We are anxious to hear your stories, and you may be assured that they will be noted. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Now, thank you very much, Lois. We have, in terms of the format for today, we have the difficult dilemma of being able to give each person that wants to talk to us and to testify enough time to make your comment and enough time for us to question you such that we can clarify issues that are presented in your testimony and still respect the contributions of all of the people that want to testify. We have a, a, a, an initial styled list of agenda that many of you have that lists people in various groups. Many people in the audience who want to talk with us today may not find themselves on this list. Let me say to you that if -- you've come a long way. You've come at some inconvenience to yourself. We want to hear from everyone that wants to speak with us. And so what is important now is that, is that our format that we're going to use will be to use a seven-minute format. We will have a timer at the podium, at the table there for the Witness, and that timer will go off at about four minutes. Four minutes in you'll see a blinking light. You can choose to stop at the four- minute mark with your presentation and allow the Committee three or so minutes to question you, or you can choose to use the full time in your testimony, which may limit the opportunity that we will have to question. Let me say that again. You have a choice that you can make. You, you're the ones we want to hear from. You can choose to use the full seven minutes in your testimony, or you can choose to respond to the blinking light at four minutes that will say to us that this is the four-minute mark, leaving us here a few minutes to question you and to highlight points of your testimony that may be unclear to us. But that's your choice. So I hope that that's very clear. Now, for those that have, who are not on the list and would like to testify, Kristin, who is in the beautiful red jacket there waving her hand, is who you should see. And if you will go to Kristin and give her your name, we will be precede then to get you on this list. Let me make another note. It says on my agenda, 5:30, meeting adjourned. My plane is not until 9:00 o'clock tonight, nor is Mary Ann's or Lois'. We will stay here as long as we need to stay to hear from those who have something to say to us. We will hear from everyone that needs to speak with us today. We take this very seriously. Those that are in Group I, it would be useful for us if you would also find your way over to, to Kristin, those that are in Group I, just so we know that you're here and so we can facilitate the movement of this process in an orderly way. Let me also mention that on the podium is Mr. Steve Klaidman, who is responsible for the work of the Outreach Committee and responsible for a variety of affairs and other things. And, Steve, we are glad that you are with, at the table with us. And now let me invite with some enthusiasm Representative Rob Portman to the witness' table. Congressman Portman is a, is a distinguished member of Congress from the Republican District here in Cincinnati, a Republican member of Congress who has been working quite diligently with the Department of Defense and other agencies of the Government to find the truth in the issues that pertain to this community. And we welcome him to make whatever comment he would like to make. Thank you for joining us. PRESENTATION BY ROBERT PORTMAN: MR. PORTMAN: Thank you for having me, Doctor. Dr. Stevenson, Ms. Norris, welcome to Cincinnati. Thank you for being willing to come here to hold this very important meeting today. I'm particularly pleased that you're going to be continuing dialogue with those who have actual personal experience, whose family members were involved, and taking care of important information considering the radiation experiments that were conducted two to three decades ago. These do impact the people in the district that I do represent. I don't remember exactly the area which is now University Hospital, but I do represent many of the families that were involved in these experiments at that time. In particular, some of the patients who participated in the radiation experiments lived in what is now the Second District. And some of the family members, including some people who you will hear from today, are social acquaintances of mine. As you are very well aware, this matter has a long, but unfortunately incomplete history of public scrutiny. There remain unanswered questions that relate not only to the critical question of how families were treated, but also the role of the Federal Government in supporting such experiments on human beings. Six months ago at my request I was able to participate in a Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, held here in Cincinnati. I understand you have a number of documents from that Committee we were in. It heard from representatives of the Department of the Defense, the president of Earth Cincinnati, and various experts. Although there are many issues being addressed by certain parties, I think there are two central issues that I as a member of Congress can address. The first is the promise of the Federal Government to compensate the victims and their families. If it's determined that the patients involved were not clearly informed in accordance with the standards for informed consent in force at the respective times of the experiments, and that these experiments became vehicles primarily for testing, not treatment, then I think compensation is appropriate. I think it would be especially appropriate in light of the potential legal barriers for recovery, including Statutes of Limitations under the Federal Tort Claims Act, sovereign immunity, and hostile community of the contractors. Ultimately the Federal Government will have to address the compensation issue once your mission is complete. As you know, there is precedent for federal compensation in cases where it's merited. I believe the second issue from the Federal Government, it's standpoint, is one of disclosure -- disclosure by the Department of Defense; disclosure by the Cincinnati General Hospital; and all others involved -- about relevant information concerning these cases, in addition to reviewing the merit of compensating families and their victims, and the victims. I believe the Government and the government contractors have an obligation to be fully forthcoming, to admit mistakes if mistakes have been made, and to ensure that safeguards are in place with respect to any experiments that may be in place today with regard to the future. Ensuring full disclosure and putting in safeguards are of particular interest to me. I was pleased, Dr. Tuckson, with that which you have mentioned this morning, because I sit on the Government Operations Committee, a committee that does have interest in fact, in government oversight of research conducted in the post-Cold War era experimentation. In September of this year GAO specifically addressed the safeguards for research first put in place in 1947 and which were observed again in 1991. Since learning that the Subcommittee would be here in Cincinnati, I've made many specific requests in writing to the, the Department of Defense to provide further information concerning its specific role in the Cincinnati Radiation Experiments questions, such as, did the 1953 DOD Informed Consent Policy apply to the researchers at the University of Cincinnati General Hospital? Was this policy communicated? What was the extent of DOD's oversight role, and what were its own standards of oversight during that critical period, both for approval of the project and for monitoring compliance with informed consent or other DOD requirements? As I've received honest answers to these questions, I've been providing them to the public. The, I've recently received additional answers to those questions that I have posed, and am providing all this correspondence I've had with DOD to the Committee today. Let me emphasize, Dr. Tuckson, and other members of the panel, my continued interest in helping you in whatever way I can to obtain information in your search for documents. I'd like to be as helpful as I can with the federal agencies involved. Again, I want to express our appreciation to you for coming here today to learn more about the radiation experiments. I look forward to reading your Interim Report apparently you will be releasing today. I look forward to working with you to obtain any information we can, and very much look forward to receiving the final recommendations. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much for joining us, and we very much appreciate that. And we can assure you'll get a copy of that Interim Report today. Right, and I'll provide these to your assistants. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir. And now if we can address the first group, Dr. Gwendon Plair. Welcome, Dr. Plair. PRESENTATION BY GWENDON PLAIR: DR. PLAIR: Good morning. Hello, again. First of all let me say good morning to the Advisory Committee, and we, I feel the need to say I'm very happy to see all of you here. And I wanted to extend a special thank-you to Mr. Klaidman for following our suggestion and recommendation to come down here. It means a great deal to us. I must say, as the Vice-Chairperson on behalf of my brother, who's Chairman of CROCSP, we're very glad that you're here, and the families are glad that you came here. They've come a great way and have gone through a great deal in order to be here this morning. Let me also say I'm son of Ms. Beatrice Plair, Study Victim 5044. I'd like to say that on behalf of the, the families of CROCSP and others in the greater Cincinnati area, I appreciate you giving them this opportunity to share their feelings and thoughts regarding themselves and their loved ones. We strongly encourage this Committee to report our interests to the larger committee members, that we would like to see this Committee do everything it can to ensure that all of those who were subjects of the Cincinnati experiment be located and warned; Two, to ensure that psychological, emotional, and medical care be provided, not only to the survivors, but to their family members; Three, to ensure that a just compensation be provided to the victims and their families; And four, that finally the Committee recommend safeguards to be put into place so to ensure that not even one more human being becomes, becomes a study number. On a personal note I wanted to add that on October fifteenth, 1994, my oldest son was married. I believe that I, that I owe him and his lovely new wife the opportunity to live without fear of becoming another victim, and that includes their, their children that they will have together. As a, as a father, it, as Vice-Chairperson of CROCSP, as a citizen of the United States of America, I strongly encourage the Advisory Committee to listen to what we have to say as to today and in the future we work with you. We will also have to say to you that we want very much that there be some resolution to this issue. Another 30 years, I'm not sure if even I can handle that much. Thank you very much, and have a good day. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. We much appreciate that. I think the, the points that you make, particularly the four things that you had, you asked us to focus on, are, are extremely important. One of the things I would like to just ask you again is to make sure that we, we have the official name of, of the organizations, because as you suggest, that, that, it's important to ensure that subjects be located and, and warned. And, and that requires that, some capacity to reach out and, and to have some mechanisms of doing that. And so I wonder, again, if you would, just for the Record, can you give us the official name of the CROCSP? DR. PLAIR: Concerned Relatives of Cancer Study Patients, -- THE CHAIR: Good. DR. PLAIR: -- Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm sure there are other groups, but -- THE CHAIR: Any other questions from the panel? (Whereupon, no response was had.) THE CHAIR: Okay, thank you very much. And we appreciate the support and, and I think that I will also just underscore this notion that you suggest; that, you know, we want to continue this working. We've been in Washington. We've seen you several times, and clearly this is not the last time we're going to work together. Thank you very much. DR. PLAIR: Thank you very much. THE CHAIR: Ms. Gloria Nelson, please. I'm sorry, Ms. Doris Jean Baker. Welcome, Ms. Baker. PRESENTATION BY DORIS JEAN BAKER: MS. BAKER: Hi. I'm scared. You have to forgive me. Plus, I'm upset, and I'll try to do the best I can in four minutes because I would like to answer your questions. THE CHAIR: Okay. Well, please. By the way, just take your time and if you're nervous it's all right and it's okay. MS. BAKER: I'm Doris Baker, and I'm writing on behalf of my great-grandmother, Gertrude Newell, Patient Number 20, who unknowingly was put into radiation experiments. I wanted you to know how I have been feeling about all of this mess. I hurt dearly. I can't get over this. You see, I have already had bad problems in my life, and was trying to get over them. Now I am, have to relive everything all over again, but not just for myself, but for other families as well. I have read about what happened to babies, little children, pregnant women, mentally impaired people, and prisoners, most of which were Black. Will someone please tell me, why did our government let this happen? There were doctors who even said that this was dangerous. They knew that 150 rad or more was very harmful to these people. I have been to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. I have seen a lot of documents. I have learned some of the codes, so please don't try to shaft me. I know a lot. The records are not here in Cincinnati, all of them on my grandmother. And I have been trying to find them. And I just would like to know where the rest of them are. So please, will you help me find them? And I would like to read to you how much they did to her. They put 200 rads of whole-body radiation in her head, her buttocks, her pelvic, and other parts of her body. They also gave her cobalt-60, 2,200 rads. I wonder why, I asked myself. She originally went into the hospital for rectal surgery to remove a tumor, but they put a bag on her stomach also. They said she had colon cancer. She died from the side effects, I believe, of the radiation that they put in her. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much for sharing that. And let me just ask you a, a few questions, if I could. I don't know whether or not you were much involved with, with her at the time she was in the hospital. Do you, did you happen to have the opportunity to see her there or know much about her at the time? MS. BAKER: Yes. I know a great deal about her, because I had to take care of her. THE CHAIR: Do you happen to know -- and again I apologize to ask you to have to relive this. Obviously this is painful to you. Do you happen to know how long it was from the time she started the treatment, the, the, the radiation, until the time she passed? MS. BAKER: About a year. About a year or so. But in between that year or so my grandmother kept trying to be strong and hide a lot of things, anything. She couldn't hide anything any more. And a lot of her, the papers that I have seen, the few pieces, most of them are just a bunch of lies. THE CHAIR: Okay. Did you happen to remember the, any discussions between the, the, the, the doctors at the hospital and you or your family or your grandmother as, as they, as this process began? Was there much talk about issues of, of what was to occur, and consent for treatment, and those sort of things? MS. BAKER: Understand, we were told that they were going to do X-rays and remove the tumor that they had found on her rectum. That was all. And then the next we turned around and they said that they'd put a bag on her and that was it, a consummate bag, and that was it. We were never told about them doing no type of radiation or nothing like that. DR. STEVENSON: I had similar questions. You were not told, as far as, your grandmother wasn't told that the radiation treatments were to be given, -- MS. BAKER: No. DR. STEVENSON: -- or why they were to be given? THE WITNESS: No. DR. STEVENSON: And at any time in that year following was it ever discussed with you -- MS. BAKER: No. DR. STEVENSON: -- as to how she was feeling or what to expect; no discussions? MS. BAKER: No. THE CHAIR: Did she ever sign any documents that gave permission for this, to your knowledge? MS. BAKER: No. She never signed for that because my mother and I were there every, at all times, even after we had to go back for follow-up. She never signed for them to do no type of tests. She never even knew about no type of tests, because we were there and she always talked with myself or my mother. THE CHAIR: The -- I'm sorry, Lois. MS. NORRIS: No, go ahead. THE CHAIR: The records that you are attempting to locate, can you give us a sense of, of what that process has been like, and why do you think that, that these records, that there are records that are not available to you? I mean, how, what makes you think that there are records someplace else that you can't get at? MS. BAKER: Because I, my grandmother has lived in Cincinnati all of my 47 years, and for her to just have only, like seven sheets of paper, and most of the papers have been typed over, or either I can't read, then they tell me that, that her records are so old that when they was put on these disks or whatever, that they were destroyed. That's impossible. THE CHAIR: I see. MS. NORRIS: You were able to obtain the records of the period during which she received the radiation, -- MS. BAKER: Yes. MS. NORRIS: -- but not the earlier records; is that right? MS. BAKER: Not the earlier records nor the records from '62 to '64. Not all of those. MS. NORRIS: Oh, I see. When did she receive radiation? MS. BAKER: It was April, 1962. THE CHAIR: Well, Ms. Baker, thank you very much. But let's do this again. There are people here who need to get from you the specific kinds of, you know, the information about it so we can help you in terms of this record referral, and so we can look into this a bit. That's important to us to understand the difficulty that you are having obtaining those records. And so if you will see one of those folks who are, the staff folks who have their hands, and they're, they're again back in that section, please do that before you leave so we can, we can take this to another session. Just a, another note. We have had some records already from Ms. Baker. MS. BAKER: Yes, the one that I have, the one paper. DR. STEVENSON: And we appreciate that very much. THE CHAIR: Thank you. Our next guest is Mrs. Gloria Nelson. Is Mrs. Nelson available? Thank you for joining us. PRESENTATION BY GLORIA NELSON: MS. NELSON: Thank you for having me. Amellia Jackson, Study Number O-57, age 52, had an eighth-grade education, an IQ of 74. She was an indigent woman who worked hard as a cook. She had one son, my father, Leonard Jackson, who's deceased. She had eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. She was a kind, sweet, loving, and just person. I could go to her and talk to her about anything anytime. She always took the time to listen, and she always helped me with my problems. She took pride in herself. She always kept her hair looking good. She liked nice clothes and furniture around. Her apartment was always clean. She loved to cook and she could bake the best pies and cakes. A SPECTATOR: I can't -- would you move the mic a little closer? Thank you. MS. NELSON: On September fourteenth she was found -- Wait a minute. I'm sorry. You, when you asked me that I lost my place. Mrs. Jackson was referred to Cincinnati General Hospital by her doctor who was feeding her with pills for pain and nausea which came and went every 20 minutes for two weeks. On September fourteenth she was found to have colon cancer. She was given a transfer colostomy, and she was told she had one year to live. On Sept-, October seventh, approximately 100 millimeters of bone marrow were aspired and stored. She was sampled on October 10, 11, and 12. October 13 she was irradiated with 100 rad of partial-body radiation to the lower body. She then was discharged on October twenty-first, 1966. She suffered a great deal of pain. She was weak. She had nausea, vomiting, anorexia, and weight loss before she expired on March twenty-fifth, 1986. I've found my grandmother's, I found my grandmother's records to be inconsistent. Some pages were faded out. Some were dark. Some had something put over them. Some, they couldn't be read. Dates were missing and assessments were lost. There were even papers that had someone else's name and age crossed out, and my grandmother's put in. In my grandmother's medical records I, I found a consent form for bone marrow to be aspirated and stored. I was wondering why I couldn't find anything in her records that said it was given back to her. Well, in a book titled, A Close Method for Filtration of Human Bone Marrow, there are two charts that show bone marrow had been stored for five and a-half months to 26 months. These charts have 19 study numbers in them. My grandmother's number is one of them. I want to know how is it, how is it when a consent form clearly states consent is also given for reinfusion, that means moving the marrow back to me when the professional staff recommended it, this form states that she was given her bone marrow back. Mr. Parker, Dr. Saenger's attorney, made a statement last week in court that these patients were not bound, confined, tied by the hospital. How could anybody expect these patients, who were terminally ill, to just get up and walk out of the hospital when these people could not afford to go to another hospital in the first place? That's why a lot of them were there. They didn't go because the hospital gave the best treatment. That's why all of them are dead now except one. A doctor is someone you trust. His job is to do everything in his power to alleviate your pain and suffering. However, this was not the case. They sure short-ended my grandmother's life by six months. Mr. Parker and, Mr. Parker is as bad as Dr. Saenger, and they belong together. The grandchildren of Amelia Jackson do not like the fact that the Government used our tax- paying dollars to irradiate our grandmother. Mrs. Jackson, nor the family, were informed nor consented to her being used in an experiment by Dr. Saenger and funded by the Department of Defense. There has clearly been a cover-up by means of the doctor, Cincinnati General Hospital, Dr. Saenger, and the City of Cincinnati. Now, before I close I would like to touch bases with you on this. The family members of the following individuals in the Saenger experiment have not been, have not come forward; therefore, their full names cannot be publicized and there is no one to speak to them today. It is important to emphasize their case, cases, because they lived for a very short time after receiving total-body radiation, and their blood counts indicate they died from radiation. Number one is R.T., Number 059. Received 150 rads total-body radiation and died 32 days later. This is a very clear radiation death. He had a normal hemogram before radiation on, on October 16, 1965. One day later his white blood count dropped to 4,000. Six days after that it was 1,800, and 30 days post-total-body irradiation it was 200. Number two, C. B., Number 060, received 150 rads total-body radiation and died 30 days later. This is another clear radiation death. Prior to TBR she had a normal hemogram. Then on Day 16 the white blood count dropped to 3,200 from 5,100, and on the day of death to 800. And platelet counts at death were only 48,000. Number four, W. R., Number 03, received 150 rads total-body radiation and died 53 days later. The white blood count drops are extremely clear. The white blood count of 7,800 prior to radiation, 1,500 at 23 days post-TBR, and 1,100 two days post-total-body radiation. At 27 days we read he selected to withdraw, and died one day later, Day 53. This fellow went to General Hospital for help. They find what seems to be advanced cancer, but the only treatment they give him is a large dose of total-body radiation that destroyed, that, that destroyed his bone marrow. He decided three weeks later that he wants no more of them, and dies about a month later, seeming, seemingly without any further treatment or even help for symptoms. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Well, thank you very, very much, Mrs. Nelson. And unfortunately we won't be able to have the chance to ask you any, any further of those questions. Those, those comments are very important. And I would just say to you, you, you, you have an opportunity and you want to give any more information, staff people really would like to be able to have that dialogue with you and are standing by. MS. NELSON: All right. THE CHAIR: So please, contact them and make sure we know how to reach you as we go forward. MS. NELSON: Sure will. THE CHAIR: Thank you. And now let me invite Mr. Richard Casey to the Stand. Thank you, Mr. Casey. PRESENTATION BY RICHARD CASEY: MR. CASEY: It, you surprised me. THE CHAIR: I'm sorry. So that the next person isn't surprised, after Mr. Richard Casey would be Mr. Herbert Varin, and I, I'm pronouncing that -- I'm sorry. No, I want, after this, after Mr. Casey will be, Lisa Crawford will be next, and then after that, Mr. Herbert Varin, and then after that, Mr. Leslie Lynch. So we'll have Mister, -- Did I do that right now? Yeah. Okay, that's right. Please. Thank you. Join us. MR. CASEY: Okay, good morning. I thank you for letting me be here. My name is Richard Casey. I'm retired from the United States Air Force in 1989. I was in the Army nine years and Air Force 12 years. I am President of the UC -- Can you hear me? Is that a little bit better? I'll talk louder. I was on the Enewetak Marshall Island cleanup from 1947, that started 1947. I was in the Air Force then. I've, I'll make it short and quick. I gave your one aide some paperwork about them sending me there. I'm sure you're familiar with me. It was the biggest farce that they ever went through in their life. They shouldn't have been. I was in the Air Force. I had to obey the command. I was, went to school with Base Medicine when I first went into the Air Force and that's when I became involved with the radiation and public health and things like that. When they sent me to Enewetak in 1947 I was supposed to be given a physical before I went, which I wasn't given; no urinalysis, blood test, or anything. Upon arriving I was given a pair of camouflage and sun glasses, and then I arrived at Enewetak Atoll, is, as you know, where they test, exploded many atomic bombs. I was there to radiation-monitor as a medic. What I was supposed to do was monitor the aerial and the Navy haul roads. And we went to different sites, different islands, which I gave the lady a map of the islands. It was not well conducted, and headed by Department of Air Force, whatever, Department of Defense. They should have never had low-ranking enlisted people like me trying to help the Army and the Navy to monitor it. We, we built a dome on the island of Lunt -- Have you heard of this? THE CHAIR: No, please continue. No. MR. CASEY: No. To go through all this would take more than what we have here, but I'm willing to, Mr. Cooper Brown, leave my address and all this. The Marshalls were the islands where we built a dome ten and a-half times bigger than the dome in New Orleans; where we dispersed the radiation over 250 rads or more, and in the middle we put radiation, just dumped it, like 150, 200 rads. So we probably polluted the whole Pacific Ocean. The Marshallese was told by the Department of Defense that, "We're going to clean up the radiation." Told employees that they didn't understand what radiation was. No one said, "I can't go to the island and run it because it, it's poison." So all these are all hot. And my lymph nodes are starting to grow and starting to have problems, which -- I'm just here. I'm not here for compensation or anything like that. I'm letting it be known that there's over 400 Army and possibly 600 Navy and Air Force that went through, which was a long ordeal. There's many things involved here, and I'm sure you're very, you want to be involved. And you said sum it up, so shoot it and go with it. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Let me, one of the issues that we're trying to understand are the role of military personnel in these kind of, of activities, and what you are, what, what you were told as you were going about your duties. Was this a normal part of your occupation? Was this something extraordinary that should have demanded some extra attention? MR. CASEY: Right. The homes, the Departments of Defense should have had some civilians -- This Mr. Russell that you had a little article, the, it's a shame he wasn't here. I would have liked to have met him in the hallway. And to begin with, I was a radiation monitor. Every time our needle would be pegged the one guy would say, "No, that's okay. It's just bad batteries." But you know we were dealing with hot. You know what I'm saying? And when we'd get ready to leave the island, as you know, Bikini was closed because when they test-bombed Bikini this happened. And after they test-bombed it, then they planted the coconut trees by our Department of Agriculture. But they don't go, they only go three feet in the ground and only took the, off one foot. And when they breast feed their babies they have cancer because of the coconuts. And they did the same things in the other islands. And I'm supposed to be a radiation monitor. How can that be when I don't know the fundamentals? I don't know the, I'm not professional like yourself. And they're using the Army, Navy, and Air Force. I'd rather spend 20 years in Nam than be one more day in Utah. THE CHAIR: Did you have any special training, and did you report to people who had more training than you as you attempted to do this work? MR. CASEY: As we would get up in the morning we would go to the high island and monitor, and then go back two or three days later and blow it up or send it into the lagoon. And we did get the readings. DR. STEVENSON: I just have a question. Were you personally given radiation monitor equipment for your own health and safety, a film badge? MR. CASEY: I had a film badge which, and they didn't give us a PLV. You know what that is? It's a special limiter-like dosimeter. And we didn't have that for three months there. And when we got ready to leave they'd say, "Okay, you put it in the bottle." I said, "Let me mark it." They said, "It's all right. I know who's the, whose it is." After I write to Albuquerque six months later, who's going to know who's they are? DR. STEVENSON: Actually that was my next question. Did you have a formal physical? MR. CASEY: No, ma'am, no type. Just urinate in a bottle. That was it. DR. STEVENSON: And no follow-up? MR. CASEY: No, ma'am. Not until I retired in 1989. I thought it was time to hit the road. DR. STEVENSON: Thank you. MS. NORRIS: This is just a factual question. When you described the radiation dome, under the dome, -- MR. CASEY: Yes, ma'am. MS. NORRIS: -- what were you dumping? Was this radiation from all the atomic blasting in all the islands? MR. CASEY: I gave, I forgot the lady's name in red, I gave her a batch of these documents, and I'd be willing to, Mr. Cooper Brown has my address to write the whole thing. There's a lot of us involved. MS. NORRIS: So it was contaminated equipment, or contaminated what? MR. CASEY: Contaminated everything, ma'am. I mean, how many atomic bombs did they test there? Hundreds. THE CHAIR: Thank you. MR. CASEY: I'm sorry. THE CHAIR: No. You don't have anything to be sorry about. We appreciate your comments. You were very helpful. MR. CASEY: Well, I was going to try to take notes, but I couldn't. It's hard to put ten tons of sardines into a glass of water. MS. NORRIS: Would you put the other nine tons of sardines on the statement in a, if the, to the staff, in a statement? MR. CASEY: As far as writings, yes, ma'am. I only have a couple of years to go because I know how my health is. THE CHAIR: Our people are right there, and certainly we appreciate the help we get from Cooper Brown and many other people, but, and will be in touch with them on a regular basis. But you can go directly to the Committee staff right now, and let's find a way to find out a little more. And somebody standing -- MR. CASEY: Right. I was with the VA. I mean, that organization, if we did away with that and the national debt we'll be all right. THE CHAIR: Our next person is Lisa Crawford. And, Lisa, didn't mean to get you out of order. I hope you will forgive my list here. And let me hope that Herbert Varin will be prepared after this. PRESENTATION BY LISA CRAWFORD MS. CRAWFORD: Good morning. THE CHAIR: Good morning. MS. CRAWFORD: Good morning. My name's Lisa Crawford, and I'm the president of FRESH, Incorporated, Fernald Residents for Environmental Safety and Health. FRESH is a watchdog environmental organization which was founded and formed ten years ago to keep the community of Fernald, Ohio, informed and educated regarding the Fernald Nuclear Weapons Facilities located 18 miles northwest of downtown Cincinnati. My main reason for coming to speak to you today is to tie two very disturbing issues together. These issues center around the one and only Dr. Eugene Saenger. Dr. Saenger began his long relationship with the Atomic Energy Commission at least as early as the 1960s when he began the human experiments. That relationship continued throughout the era of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Energy Research and Development Agency, to the present-day Department of Energy. Dr. Saenger was hired by the Department of Energy to testify against and defeat the claims of the Fernald residents and the Fernald workers in each of their class-action lawsuits, as well as several individual radiation-related Worker Compensation claims. Dr. Saenger has also worked for Department of Defense. He participated in studies for the Defense Atomic Support Agency, which is now known as the Defense Nuclear Agency. He studied the effects of radiation on the troops, and how to protect them; what to do in nuclear warfare; how to handle radiation safely; and the handling of nuclear weapons. In his own words, quote, this was a very important part of the Department of Defense's activities, unquote. Under this contract the University of Cincinnati was paid $650,000. Dr. Saenger has always been, and continues to be a staunch supporter of the idea that, quote, low levels of radiation cause no harm, unquote. Evidence of this can be found in any of his Depositions or testimony in the residents' and workers' cases, and the Worker's Compensation claims. In the Fernald residents' cases he stated that, quote, no one is in any greater risk from having lived near Fernald than they would have been had Fernald not been there. Dr. Saenger went on to say that even people who drank water from contaminated wells, and for people who live downwind from the plant, or who lived adjacent to the K-65 silos were included in this broad statement. As a layperson, and one who drank from a contaminated well for several years, it is hard to understand just how Dr. Saenger could work for the Department of Defense under a shroud of secrecy while performing experiments on unknowing victims and then testifying on behalf of the Department of Energy, claiming that there is no danger in exposure to low levels of radiation. The Department of Defense provided the fund for Dr. Saenger to determine just how much low-level radiation the human body could withstand, and then the Department of Energy provided additional funds for him to withhold that information from the victims and the general public. Yet Dr. Saenger continues to contend to this very day that there were no secrets, and that the patients were fully informed of the consequences of the experiments; that they gave their permission for the experiments to be carried out; and that consent to knowledgeable, to knowledgeable participation was there, knowledgeably. Sorry. But, this is not true in the case of the Fernald residents and the workers. They did not learn until a (sic) accidental release was made public in December of 1984 just what was going on at the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center. Our question to Dr. Saenger is this: If there were no dangers to the community and the workers at the Fernald plant, then why aren't we told exactly what was being produced at the Fernald plant in, in the 1970s? Why was all this information being covered up, or at the very least, withheld from us? Why then were we forced to get a lot of our information as a result of the Freedom of Information Act? The secrecy surrounding the human experiments was allowed to continue throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. And all this time Dr. Saenger was a key governmental expert witness against all of us who had been and are still being affected by this facility. Dr. Saenger played an important role throughout four decades, a very disturbing dual role. This dual role in the relations between the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy lead (sic) us to some very disturbing thoughts. Were the residents and workers at Fernald also being used as guinea pigs in the human experiments being conducted by Dr. Saenger? When the funding from the Department of Defense dried up and some negative media coverage made the headlines in the 1970s, did Dr. Saenger then shift his focus to the Department of Energy and the new radiation victims? For now we can only wonder, worry, and wait and see. Were Dr. Saenger and his colleagues anxiously rubbing their hands together in the early 1980s as my family learned our well was known to be contaminated for four years without having informed, been, without us having been informed, in anticipation of some more radiation victims for his study? Were they doing the same when the horrendous conditions of the huge radioactive dust releases that had been occurring for years were fully revealed? Yeah, more radiation victims? And again, when the Fernald workers finally learned that the materials that they had been handling for nearly 35 years were radioactive, yet more radiation victims with great daily exposures? We can only wonder, worry, wait and see. We may never know what prompted Dr. Saenger to staunchly deny Worker's Compensation claims for Department of Energy, or continue to swear under sworn testimony that low levels of radiation would not hurt the residents and the workers at Fernald, but we do know that he certainly had a large population of victims exposed to study. In summation, not only are the human experiment patients of the old General Hospital Cold War radiation victims; the residents of Fernald and the Fernald workers are Cold War radiation victims, too. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you. I think we -- apparently we only have about 20 seconds to question, but let me say to you that this is extremely important testimony for us to hear. One of the elements of our analysis, it necessarily focuses on interdepartmental relationships and how different branches of the Government coordinated, or whatever, in terms of their efforts. This is a particularly new area for, for, for me to hear, and I think that this will be important for us to look at these, these, this juxtaposition that you so eloquently imposed. Again, I hope that we have a way of reaching you. Clearly I know that many members of the staff are going to be clearly interested in what you presented. And I would only hope that we would be able to be of some help at reducing at least any unnecessary anxieties about some of those questions, and we hope that we find that that is unnecessary anxiety. But anxiety of any kind is painful, and I'm sorry you're going through that doubt. And, please, make sure that one of the people in the staff know how to reach you. MS. CRAWFORD: Okay. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Mr. Herbert, and I hope I'm saying you, your name right, correct. I'm going to, in fact, not say it and let you tell me how to say it. PRESENTATION BY HERBERT VARIN: MR. VARIN: Thank you. It's pronounced "Varin." THE CHAIR: "Varin." Thank you. MR. VARIN: Before I read what I have, I would like to let you know that my mother's one of the radiation victims. I was her only son, so me and my mother were very close. I was 22 years old at the time of the radiation, so I recall quite a few incidents. So I would like to read to you what I have, and I'd be open to any questions that you might have. My mother's name was Nynel Kline (phonetic). She was Case Study Number 075. My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer on October first, 1962. She was operated on and then went into remission until about March of 1966. She was continually going back to the hospital for various treatments. On October thirtieth, 1967, she was given 200 rads of partial-body irradiation. She experienced nausea, vomiting immediately after the treatment. I also remember when I visited her on the hospital ward, that she complained that her body felt like it was on fire. On November third, 1967, she was released from the hospital and I took her home. Her next several weeks I watched her not being able to eat, and complained of the burning sensation. She often talked to me and other family members about her treatment, but at no time did she ever mention being part of any experiment for the Government. She would have talked to me and other family members before ever consenting to any experiment. I am appalled, too, that Dr. Eugene Saenger and his associates, and the Government, would join in an inhumane act. I also believe that Dr. Eugene Saenger violated his moral and ethical obligations toward his patients. We were taught as children and young adults to believe in our federal government; that they would make all the right decisions concerning our welfare as people. For the Government to sponsor a radiation experiment of this nature on my mother and other patients is totally immoral, which brings me to something I was thinking about last night. And my mother was a great believer in John F. Kennedy, and, and the thing about that, it made think of one thing and that was: Ask not what you can do for your country, but ask what your country, or what, what you can do for your country. It's not what your country can do for you, but it's what you can do for your country. And this brings one thing in mind. I don't believe that that saying meant that people should be total-body irradiated. That's my closing comment. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Let me just again try to understand. You were 22 years old at the time that your mother underwent the radiation? MR. VARIN: Absolutely. THE CHAIR: And you're the only other, are there any other members of the family that were closely involved with her? MR. VARIN: Yes, she had a sister, and there were nine children. And we were all very close. I had no other brothers and sisters, but these nine were very close to me, like brothers and sisters. THE CHAIR: What's important is that the, in some documents we've been given we were led to believe that there was a physician who interviewed the patient, or to a patient, not, patients in this process, on more than one occasion, and that consulted with family when available, and I'm trying to understand. With, would it be possible that someone could have discussed these issues with your mother and with other members of the family and you being unaware of it? MR. VARIN: No, that is not possible. If and when that I couldn't take her to the hospital, my aunt would make sure that she got to the hospital. And at no time was it ever mentioned about any type of treatment, you know, any type of treatments at all of this nature. THE CHAIR: And, and, and to your knowledge no, no signatures or forms that permitted this? MR. VARIN: My mother had a very distinct handwriting. And I could show you a consent form, if that's what you're talking about. That consent form, and I have studied it, I've looked at it, that is not her handwriting on the bone marrow and also on the radiation. It is a very unique handwriting, and I would, and I've only come up with two conclusions: One, she didn't sign it. The other would be that she was so drugged up that she, she didn't realize what she was signing. DR. STEVENSON: I just have a few questions, too. You mentioned her diagnosis was in 1962, and then over that period of time she continued to receive some sort of treatment? Did you say that, or am I right in that? MR. VARIN: Yeah, she went into remission. She went into remission from 1962 until about 1966, and then she was going back and forth. DR. STEVENSON: Was she getting chemotherapy? MR. VARIN: Yes, basically getting chemo before that. DR. STEVENSON: And then the radiation was given in October, 1967? Was she ever able to describe the total irradiation? I mean, she wasn't able to tell you it was an experiment, but was she told she was getting radiation for the ovarian cancer? MR. VARIN: I think we assumed that when they found the cancer that she was going to be operated. I don't think she realized this was going to be a radiation experiment. DR. STEVENSON: And then last question, how long was it following the radiation treatment that she did pass away? MR. VARIN: My mother was going back and forth from the time that she received this, was going back and forth to the hospital, and on July twenty-third of 1968, they refused to see her any more. They said there was nothing else they could do for her. And at that time she was admitted to Drake Hospital because she had to have, she had to be constantly monitored, and Drake Hospital was a facility where a lot of people went to. And she died on December twenty-eighth, 1968. THE CHAIR: Lois? MS. NORRIS: Mary Ann has asked the questions I wanted to ask, but you mentioned the finding consent forms and questioned whether they were signed by your mother or not. Were those found amongst your mother's records, or did you get those from the Hospital? MR. VARIN: I got those from the Hospital, but they are very unclear. Those records, if, if I may iterate, the records prior to her radiation are quite clear. From the time of the radiation on, it maintains, it looks like they've been whited out. There is no clear, definite thing after, any time after the radiation. That's why I questioned even the consent form. It is really faded. In fact, it even took several copies and put it in there. But it is very faded, but I can tell that is not her signature. I, I mean, if I showed you the signature you'd be able to recognize it's not her signature. MS. NORRIS: If it would be appropriate, if deemed appropriate to share a copy of those records with this Committee, we would welcome them. I don't know if I'm asking something that's appropriate or not. And the same referring to the others of those who have referred to the quality of the copies, if they could be provided, too. A SPECTATOR: Can't hear you. THE CHAIR: Say it again. MS. NORRIS: I said, I don't know if it's appropriate to ask you to share a copy of your mother's records with the members of the Committee, but we would appreciate them. And the same applies to others of you who refer to quality of the copies and apparent changes of the material. We would like to have a, copies of those if deemed appropriate. THE CHAIR: Well, thank you very much. I, we're out of time, but let me, and I'll probably get in trouble, but let me just, there's something that I, you just need to understand better. I need to just understand it. When your mother went back in a second time for the radiation, was it under the -- what was your knowledge about what the radiation then was for? To treat her problem, or was it for some other reason? And, and, and, and what understanding of why they did that in '66? MR. VARIN: Are you talking about when she was radiated in '67? THE CHAIR: Yes, the second time. The second exposure experience. MR. VARIN: There was no, normally I would think that they would have talked to her; they would have called a family member in and we would talk about any type of treatment that she was going to have. There was no mention; no mention at all. I was never called. My aunt was never called in, and there was no mention of this type of experiment at all to her. I think my mother looked to the doctors as saying, "Hey, look, they're doing what is best for me." And there was times that she would say, "I think they're trying to kill me." And I would say, "No, Mom. They're doing what's best for you." And I recall there were times after the treatment that she would have to go back for psychological things, and she kept saying, "Why do they keep asking me other questions? It's not my brain, it's my stomach. It's my physical part that's messed up." THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Oh, one more question. DR. STEVENSON: You said she had partial-body irradiation. Was it upper or lower? MR. VARIN: Midline. DR. STEVENSON: I beg your pardon? MR. VARIN: It was midline. I think the records say that. THE CHAIR: Thank you again, Mr. Varin. And now Mr. Leslie Lynch. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Lynch. Good morning. PRESENTATION BY LESLIE LYNCH: MR. LYNCH: Morning. Before I read my prepared statement, of which you all should have a copy, -- THE CHAIR: Hold on one minute. Stop the clock. Let's see. Is there a copy in -- before we go to the trouble, let me make sure we have it. We do. Start the clock. Okay. MR. LYNCH: Several, one situation has come to light subsequent to my forwarding my Statement to the Committee, and that is the revelation of one of the committee members, Mr. Philip Russell. Being ex-military, and I know Mr. Russell's ex-military, I'm not sure I agree with his philosophies, et cetera, concerning that military people, being military people, subject to orders, should accept research testing as a part of life. I would like Mr. Russell to make a statement like that in front of me. And I mentioned that because the tenor of his philosophies and statements that he has made to the press and others go along those lines. It, I may not be quoting him succinctly or precisely, but that is the gist of his attitudes towards members of the military research, in research. Members of President Clinton's Advisory Committee to Human Radiation Experiments and guests, I come to you as an angry and discouraged citizen. Words cannot adequately describe my inner feelings since learning I was a human test subject. The fact I was a human test subject was brought to my attention by the Veteran's Administration in Wilmington, Delaware, as a result of my filing a disability claim for skin cancer. The Veteran's Administration discovered my Air Force medical records, Department of Defense Form 1141, "Record of Exposure to Ionizing Radiation." You will note the date, June seventeenth, 1957, and a location code. This date places me five days into Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. To the best of my knowledge I was not advised I would be subjected to this testing, nor do I recall consenting as a participant. At this time I do not know how the radiation was administered. As you know, the Air Force has admitted conducting radiation testing at Lackland Air Force Base during this period. On January nineteenth, 1987, Johns Hopkins Medical Institution diagnosed skin cancers, squamous cell carcinoma. You will note in the Veterans Administration letter to me dated January nineteenth, 1994, there is a relationship between ionizing radiation and squamous cell carcinoma. The Veterans Administration has denied me the claim for lack of medical evidence treating me for skin cancer during my military service, but Veterans Administration made no mention of the, the relationship of squamous cell carcinoma and ionizing radiation in their determination. I bring the Veterans Administration issue to you because it is evident they do not wish to admit any liability where human test subjects were involved. I gave this country over 30 years of my life in the military. I'm a Retired Chief Warrant Officer in the United States Army. At this point in time I am no longer proud of my uniform. As far as I'm concerned, I was a participant in the American Holocaust. As an involuntary human test subject for the United States Government, it is my contention I'm entitled to written apologies from the Department of the Air Force, the Secretary of Defense, and the Congress of the United States, and the President. With the documents presented to you today it is abundantly clear my evidence is a direct violation of all ethics codes and protocols enacted during that period of time. Therefore, I'm requesting immediate redress for myself and other human test subjects in the form of monetary damages and future health care benefits. The mental anguish I have endured for the past nine months is indescribable. I'd like answers, apologies, and appropriate compensation. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Let me just ask you a few quick questions. First, do you happen to know -- have you been able to give information to anybody in any official capacity about your duties on the Lackland Air Force Base at the time that you were there? And have you been able to draw any connection to any activity, any, any activity that may cause this exposure to radiation at that time? Do you have any, have you been given information about what you were doing and what might have been your possible exposure? MR. LYNCH: The only, specifics, no, I've not found out any specifics. The only thing I can vaguely recall is our platoon going into a nondescript elongated narrow building. It was like a narrow hallway down the center, and on each side of this hallway was a wide building, but a very, very narrow hall down through the center of the building. But, you know, -- THE CHAIR: Do the, the records that, that, that the, that, that, that brought this to light, who, someone reviewed your medical records and it came to their attention that you were exposed to ionizing radiation? MR. LYNCH: Right. THE CHAIR: Have you seen those records? MR. LYNCH: No. I have asked for those for myself under the Freedom of Information Act. To my knowledge the Veterans Administration from Wilmington, Delaware, has no records at this time. THE CHAIR: Now, when I look, as I quickly look at your case, the reason that your disability and service-connected was denied, and again, just going over this quickly, was the, because of the claim to excessive exposure to sun. MR. LYNCH: Correct. THE CHAIR: And therefore, on the basis of excessive exposure to sun, they didn't see the relationship. But you weren't the one, it seems, that -- You thought it, it was because of exposure to the, the sun; it was, was the exposure to ionizing radiation. Have the people at the VA seen the things that triggered this in the very beginning? MR. LYNCH: Right. The VA gave me this copy of DD Form 1141. They gave me that. Subsequent, within the past couple of months I have filed another claim with the VA for skin cancer disability based on ionizing radiation. They were, in my opinion, tap dancing around the issue initially. THE CHAIR: Okay. So I think I've got, let me just be, because I know my committee members want to ask a question, let me try to be brief. Again, the Service, I'm reading from something that, and I'm sorry the audience can't follow this Witness, but I'm reading from a document from the VA Department that says, quote, "While reviewing [your Records,] your service medical records it [comes] to [the] attention [of the VA] that you were exposed to ionizing radiation ... June [seventeenth,] 1957." Now, you're saying to us that those documents that the VA reviewed, you have not seen? You don't know what they're talking about? MR. LYNCH: No, I do not. THE CHAIR: All right. Well, then it will be important that we, we get to that, because what doesn't make sense from this, as I try to understand you quickly, is that the reason they discontinued your disability is because of the claim of sun exposure as being the causal factor. MR. LYNCH: Correct. THE CHAIR: Yet it seems it is the same agency that also knows about the ionizing radiation. MR. LYNCH: Correct. And they don't mention that. And that is the point. That's my point. That's my point. THE CHAIR: There. It takes me a minute before I begin to catch on. MS. NORRIS: I have a question. How long ago did you file the Freedom of Information Act to get the information on exposure? MR. LYNCH: That's just been within the past couple of weeks, Ms. Norris. THE CHAIR: Well, this, thank you very much. I'm sure the staff clearly understand the question we're asking, that this should be a fairly easy issue to understand, and the, the, the context of your remark, the larger context we particularly appreciate, which is that you seem to be suggesting that perhaps the VA willingly knew about a relationship to your exposure to this in, in the Army, and does not want to then be liable for taking care of the consequences of that. And so it would be important to us to try to trace this process that you've gone through with these records, and why it is, if it is in fact so, and you know, we have to look and understand that, investigate that, that one side of the operation is, is denying something that the other side clearly has, and if, whether or not that's exactly what's going on. So I begin to understand your point, and it's an interesting point. And make sure again, please, sir, that one member of our staff is, is to get with you. This is a pretty easy one to be able to trace through and see where we come out. MR. LYNCH: Clearly. THE CHAIR: Thank you for your time. And finally, this is for the first section here, and then we'll take a break, Mrs. Troy Beasley. Is Mrs. Troy Beasley with us? Mrs. Troy Beasley? (Whereupon, no response was had.) THE CHAIR: All right. Well, with that what we're going to do is, we are scheduled for a 15-minute break, but I think, let's see, but, but we're 15 minutes behind schedule, so what we'll probably do is take a, we'll take a ten-minute break. The reason why we're being -- I want to just explain this. There are several breaks built into this schedule. It is not because we are lazy folk up here, but we have learned from doing this stuff that if we're going to give the intellectual and emotional attention to each witness, we really need to be fresh. And it's unfair to you if we just get to people and run you through just person after person like this was an assembly line or a factory, and that's not what we want to do here. But in the interest of time we're going to take a ten-minute break and reconvene at ten minutes after the hour. Thank you very much. (Whereupon, at 11:01 a.m. ET the participants took a brief recess and reconvened at 11:16 a.m. ET, after which the following occurred:) THE CHAIR: I'd like to get started again. As we prepare to reconvene, let me again remind you that if you are a person who is scheduled or wants to be scheduled to speak, that you should check in with Kristin, who is out in the hallway getting people in. MR. KLAIDMAN: Right. Exactly. THE CHAIR: Okay. So I will, when I see Kristin I'll know it's time to start. There's Kristin. So, again, if you are a person who is scheduled to speak or want to be scheduled and have not, touch base with Kristin. Yes, she's wearing red and waving, and she's a very nice person and you should go see her. Where are, we're ready to resume and we invite to the witness table Miss Ann Hopkins. Ms. Ann Hopkins, and then Ms. Ann Hopkins would be followed by Ms. Martha Stephens, and then by Ms. Madge Spangel, and then Ms. Lillian Pagano, Bob Phillips, Sherry Brabant, and then by Ms. Otisteen Goodwin. Now, let's see. Ann Hopkins? (Whereupon, no response was had.) THE CHAIR: All right, we will come back to Ann. Now, is, is, is our, is Martha here? Oh, great. We're very happy that, that Martha Stephens is with us, a very important person in, in all of this discussion. Martha. PRESENTATION BY MARTHA STEPHENS: DR. STEPHENS: I teach in, at the English Department at the University of Cincinnati. Could I ask you first of all, with regard to the consent, do we have copies of the consent forms that were contained in the reports to the DOD? Don't you have copies of all those? MS. NORRIS: I'm, weren't consent forms used only in later years? I, I think we have copies of something that evolved in later years. I don't, to my knowledge, -- DR. STEPHENS: Yes, uh-huh. When this question came up a while ago I just wanted to be sure that there were no written consent forms in the first five years. And then you have copies of all the others, and -- You're right. THE CHAIR: That a, that's correct; yes. DR. STEPHENS: Uh-huh. And in regard to the medical records, for instance, that Mr. Varin mentioned, you have copies of all the medical records that you have requested, and we did offer to you any that you wanted that exist in the attorney's offices. And so they should already -- Aren't they, Steve? MR. KLAIDMAN: Yeah, the attorneys have sent us a considerable amount of medical records. MS. NORRIS: My apologies. I had not seen those personally, so I -- DR. STEPHENS: Uh-huh. Well, let me just say I hope you will read all of the doctors' reports, including the patient histories that were attached to the ends of those reports, and this will tell you a great deal about the people who you've heard today, if you have not already seen this. I assume every Committee member has seen that full set, haven't they? MR. KLAIDMAN: Not yet. Those are being reviewed by the staff and going out to the committee members. Some of them they have all of them, and some in pieces. DR. STEPHENS: One other document I wanted to ask you about, I got up an annotated list of the short survivors and what all we know about them at this time, and I sent that to you several weeks ago. Do you have that? MS. NORRIS: Would we have those? THE CHAIR: We have those. DR. STEPHENS: All right. Then you have most of my testimony, and I just wanted to say I was able to get copies of the doctor reports. And I wrote a report that was issued by the zones. And you realize at that time we didn't know any of the victims. We didn't know their names or their families, but now in this room today we, it's wonderful to know that we now have 43 families, surviving families identified and are part, in fact they are all part of the lawsuits. And we know, of 88 original victims, we know the names of 60, and I'm sure soon we will know them all. And most of the people we have identified have already spoken out dramatically in the press and in other meetings, and so we know a great deal more than we did in 1971. And we've come a long way. I guess we can be proud of that. Now, there's one statistic that I want to emphasize today that I did not include in the report I wrote in '71, and the reason I now think it is the key statistic for all of us to consider. I base that on the discussions that have been held by your committee as we have learned about them through the news reports and on the C-span and so on, and various debates that have taken place over these past eight months. And I want to bring that out, first of all, what I consider to be the key statistic matters, because we have 88 people irradiated with total- or partial-body radiation, at least 88 that we know about and have histories for. Of that 88, 25 people died within a month or so of being irradiated. Now, the key statistic that has not so far been given out is this: Of those 88 people, looking at it another way for a moment now, there were 31 people who were given the higher doses of radiation; that is, 150 rads, 200, and one man whose name we know, Philip Daniels, but we haven't found him yet, was given 250 rads. Thirty-one people of the 88 got entire doses. Now, I want to tell you that of those people, nearly half died within a month or so of their irradiation. Now, we already know by studying the original patient histories that we had from them, and now their full medical records, we know that at least 13 can be documented as having died of radiation because we know that their blood counts went from normal down to nothing; their immune systems were completely destroyed; they died of infection, usually pneumonia; that they are classic radiation deaths, fully documented. We expect that when we study all the records we will, this number will amount, amount to about 25. We will probably have about 25 people that we know died of irradiation. The very second person that was irradiated by the good doctors, James Tidwell, whose son is here today, died in 34 days of a severe drop in blood counts, and died of pneumonia, the second patient ever irradiated. And I just want to ask you this: Why do you even care what the doctors thought they might be doing for cancer patients with whole-body radiation in 1960? Frankly, I know they knew that nothing, nothing could be done with people with solid tumors with this level of radiation. I feel sure in my mind that they didn't think that they could help them. But if you think they could, why did they continue when they started killing people, even if they thought in 1960 this might constitute a treatment for cancer? They lost the second person they irradiated for bone marrow. By the time Maude Jacobs (phonetic) came along in 1964, and her daughter, Ms. Anderson, will speak to you in a few minutes, they'd already given 13 people the higher doses of radiation, and they had lost eight people within a month or so of bone marrow. And yet they went right again and gave Maude Jacobs 150 rads. She was home taking care of her children. She was given radiation treatment. She became nauseated, went to the hospital, and died 28 days later. They'd already lost all these people. No matter what they knew in 1960, why didn't they know by that time that they should stop? They went on for 11 years. The patients were not seriously ill, and that's what the families have led us to understand. I didn't know that Maude Jacobs was home taking care of children the day before she was irradiated. Now we have from the families what the condition of the people were. We know that Mike Spangail (phonetic) drove himself to the hospital. He had worked certain days of the week before he was irradiated, and he died 34 days later of pneumonia from a destruction of his immune system. He was not extremely ill. Most of the people weren't. We know of one woman now who lived 11 years. She survived her radiation because she only got a hundred rads. That didn't often kill people; sometimes it did. She survived. I feel if she had gotten the 50 rads now she would have been placed in this zone of highest danger where she would have had about a 50-percent chance of living through the month. Now, I just want to say: Don't be part of the coverup. We ask you today not to be part of the 22-year coverup. Don't keep looking for papers you don't need. You have enough. You know the story. You should know the truth of this. Anybody who reads the pap-, document on this sees immediately what happened to these people. What, what possible benefits? The doctors said they might experience some relief of pain. We don't even know that Mike Spangail had any pain. He wasn't taking pain medicine until he got the radiation. Then he was put on morphine. In many cases we don't even know that the patients had any pain, and yet the doctors, the only notation we have of them in the medical records as to what they told the patients was that they were given, given, being given the treatment for palliation of pain. I just want to remind you: There has not only not been any investigation of these deaths in all these years by the County Prosecutor here. The medical school has not acknowledged any wrongdoing. My university, I'm not real proud to be associated with it today. My university has not acknowledged any wrongdoing. The State Medical Board has not investigated the licenses of these doctors. There are four of them still practicing in the same hospital today. I hope the Radiation Task Force will ask, and pass a resolution asking those doctors to consider taking leave of absence until their names are cleared. I don't think they should still be practicing. Don't be part of this coverup, as so many have. Tell the truth about, to the Country about us. At least say, "In Cincinnati, these things should not have happened." The victims should be apologized to and there should be remedies for them. Some of them lost a bread winner long before that person would have died of cancer. THE CHAIR: Thank you. Let me assure you that we will not, and have no intention to be part of any coverup of it. That's why we're here. That's why we're doing the work. You have been a singly important person in bringing these issues to light. You have studied them with thoroughness and responsibility. We are reviewing the reams of data that you have made available. I appreciate your testimony. I will say to you that we will have to ask a lot of questions because we have been studying this for only a few months. You are an expert on it. I hope that you do not become too frustrated with us as we ask the questions that we must ask to come to the same sophistication that you have over 20-some years. We are not in the business of being part of any coverups. We have a time limit when our work has to be finished, so this will not go on and on and on. We will report to the American people on April 21, and in the interim I would only again urge you not to be frustrated with us as we ask the questions that we need to do our job, so much of what has been easier by your work. Thank you very much for being with us today. DR. STEPHENS: Thank you. THE CHAIR: The next speaker is -- By the way, is Ann Hopkins available now? Ann, Ann is somebody that we particularly want to hear from, and so I will continue to periodically ask whether Ann is available. She's very, very important that we hear from her. And now we're very pleased if Ms. Madge Spangail would join us. Madge Spangail? Okay -- (Whereupon, no response was had.) A SPECTATOR: Can I say something, sir, just a moment? I talked to Madge a couple, three weeks ago, and it's unlikely that she would be here. She has mental problems. She's an elderly lady. She has much information that you people should hear. I think that she is not here, that maybe it would be beneficial for everybody for the panel to get in touch with her through letter or whatever and get information from her. THE CHAIR: Thank you. And thank you for sharing that. I very much appreciate that. I'd then invite a trio of people together, Ms. Lillian Pagano, Mr. Bob Phillips, and Mrs. Betty Allen. If the three of you would please join us. And please feel free -- Would you like to testify, to talk with us individually or as a group? Would you like to bring your, to, to, to speak one after the other, or do you want us to engage each one of you individually in conversation? How would you like for us to handle this? MR. PHILLIPS: You may ask us any questions you like. Maude Jacobs is our mother. THE CHAIR: Okay, so you're all, all from the same, same family? MR. PHILLIPS: Right. THE CHAIR: Fantastic. Then would you, I think it would make sense for us to hear from all three of you, and then we'll respond and ask you together as a group, if that it's okay with you. MR. PHILLIPS: Fine. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Would you please identify yourself, Bob. PRESENTATION BY BOB PHILLIPS: MR. PHILLIPS: My name is Bob Phillips. A SPECTATOR: Can't hear you. MR. PHILLIPS: Martha Stephens apparently told everything I had in mind to say. A SPECTATOR: Can't hear him. Talk into the mic. Speak up. MR. PHILLIPS: And the only thing I can just say is that was, was my emotions; that I was angry, sad. A SPECTATOR: Still can't hear him. MR. KLAIDMAN: Give him another mic. A SPECTATOR: Share a mic that would be working. There we go. MR. GARCIA: Testing. MR. PHILLIPS: Test. THE CHAIR: We're going to start that clock all over again, so don't, don't worry. We're not rushed for time. And just take your time. MR. PHILLIPS: Well, my name is Bob Phillips. My mother was Maude Jacobs, and what I wanted to say, Mrs. Martha Stephens practically said everything I had in mind. I just want to tell you that I'm, was angered when I found this out; sad; and ashamed of my country; and depressed. That really is about all I can say. But like I say, Mrs. Stephens said everything I had thought. And of course, she, she knows more about this than I do. It, I'm not bringing up my mother's records because I'm sure you have them, and that's really about all I have to say. THE CHAIR: Would you like to -- Thank you for saying what you did say. PRESENTATION BY LILLIAN PAGANO: MS. PAGANO: My name is Lillian Pagano. My mother was Maude Jacobs. She was home working, doing light housework. She was sick, but when she went back to the hospital, that was the end of her. She came home vomiting. Four days later she was in the hospital. Twenty-five days later she died from whole-body radiation. I am really surprised and didn't want to believe my mother was any part of this. When this all came out, my mom was in Heaven. She wasn't there, but she was there, unknown to me or anybody else in this family. I argued at the time when people were talking about this. I said, "No, my mother had nothing to do with it," because I never left her side. When she got into the hospital I moved my coffee pot in there. I never left her side. If there ever was, this radiation business was, was a total secret. And I kept arguing with people until I got the records. Still I don't have all the records. Still they're staying secretly hidden, and I can't figure it out. And I'd like to find out more about it. THE CHAIR: Thank you. Thank you. PRESENTATION BY SHERRY BRABANT: MS. BRABANT: I want to clarify one thing. I'm not Betty Allen. Betty Allen is Earl's daughter. I'm Sherry Brabant, B-r-a-b-a-n-t, and I'm one of the three children that got left at home. I just wanted to bring up, I, I did bring my mother's records. I know you have them, but I underlined a few things that were a little strange, like the fact that a lot of them are blacked out. So many things are missing, so many just ordinary things like, doctors' notes and nurses' notes, the kind that you would have on the clip board at the bottom of the bed. There's no observations of how my mom was feeling, you know, like, "Patient was depressed;" "Patient took medicine easily." My mom was very depressed. And she was out of her head quite a bit of the 25 days that she survived. Lil was with her day and night. And she'd come home just to shower and, and check on us, because she had seven kids of her own, and she took in me and my, my two little sisters. So she had a whole houseful she was trying to take care of. I have letters in this folder for you to read that were letters wrote within the last, the last couple of months of my mom's life to my aunt. They prove that she was up doing her housework and cooking and taking care of the three of us. And you can also tell by reading them that she would have never signed up for this because she would have left us. Not voluntarily. I put a picture of her in there, too, so she's not just a name and a number. That's all I have to say. Thank you. THE CHAIR: It's very difficult for us to, maybe inappropriate for us to ask you any questions right now regarding, you know, details. In fact, I, I have, I do have questions, but I just don't think it's appropriate to, to, to trouble you with them around those kind of details. You, you've said so eloquently all that I guess needs to be said at a moment like this. We know how to find you. We will be in touch with you at a different time, but I'm, I just couldn't possibly ask you any questions at this point. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are, are these originals? MS. BRABANT: No, sir, they're copies. THE CHAIR: We could have all of them? MS. BRABANT: They're all copies. You can have all of them. THE CHAIR: Would Ms. Otisteen Goodwin please join us? PRESENTATION BY OTISTEEN GOODWIN: THE CHAIR: Thank you, Ms. Goodwin, for, for being with us today. MS. GOODWIN: Thank you. THE CHAIR: Am I pronouncing your name properly? This -- MS. GOODWIN: No, my name, my name is Otisteen Goodwin, and I'm the daughter of -- THE CHAIR: But since I would have it wrong I'm going to make sure. Spell your first name, please. MS. GODWIN: O-t-i-s-t-e-e-n, G-double o-d-w-i-n. THE CHAIR: Thank you for clarifying that. A SPECTATOR: Can you speak into the microphone for us back here? MS. GOODWIN: I don't know which one works. THE CHAIR: You have plenty of time, Ms. Goodwin. Just take your time. MS. GOODWIN: Good. Good. Okay. My mother entered the General Hospital on November, '64, with a tumor removed from her. We were informed that they're going to give her cobalt, six treatments. THE CHAIR: What was your mother's name? MS. GOODWIN: It was Estella (phonetic) Goodwin. THE CHAIR: Okay. MS. GOODWIN: And they gave her the treatment. She went back and forth. My father took her. Then she had a, returned to stay in November of 1965, and they told us that it had spread into her brain. Then the next thing we knew, I, I read in the paper where she was in this radiation treatment thing, and we didn't know anything about that until I read it in the paper. But with the medical records that they had given me on November eleventh, 1965, she received 400 rads in four weeks. And then she was in inserted in her uterus on January thirteenth, fifteenth, twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth of January, she was inserted with irradiation. And then that same day in her vagina she was inserted radiation, a total of 7,110 rads of radiation. Then I saw in there in the records that she had a mask on her face from here to here. It said 7-7 mask that we didn't know anything about, and they gave her radiation, I assume, for that also. She passed away on January fourth, of 1966. We had no knowledge of, of anything that they would have done to her of that sort, and I know if my father had given permission he would have told us. He didn't, and he didn't know nothing about it either. He can't speak because he's dead himself now. My mother was only 47 years old when this happened to her. She left five kids. One was only 12 that I and my father had to take care of. And she, and she, she had no knowledge of having a mother from the age, from the time she was born until she was 12. To this day I ask her, does she know anything? She says no. She hardly knows who she looks like. And, and the reason I know that my father didn't have any permission, no permission slips of any kind is because he only had his kids to talk to, and he would come home every day, every night, rather, because he went out there in the morning for her at breakfast. He stayed there for lunch and he went to work at 2:00 o'clock. And then at 12:00, 12:30 I would go pick him up from work and he would discuss what happened to her and any kind of thing that happened. And if he had give permission, or she gave permission, he would have discussed it with us. I was 30 when my mother passed away, and I know I would have understood anything he said. And, and my younger brothers and sisters, they were a lot younger. They didn't even know nothing like this was going on. And, and that is all I have to say, say. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Those, those records that you're reading from, do you have, could I see those? MS. GOODWIN: Yes. THE CHAIR: Are they, are those your only copies, or -- MS. GOODWIN: No, I made copies for you. Let's see. Here's some more. THE CHAIR: Okay. Can, these are for us, too? MS. GOODWIN: Oh, these are, is her emergency report. I mean, her Death Certificate is on the bottom. Do you need that? THE CHAIR: There's one thing we do need. Do you need this back? MS. GOODWIN: No, I have another. THE CHAIR: And do you have another copy? MS. GOODWIN: Uh-huh. THE CHAIR: We actually have a need for those. DR. PLAIR: Let me also add that that's one, this is one of the new members of the families that's come forward here. So we are giving you the records and we brought these records here. And she said there will be more information coming forward, that I make sure -- THE CHAIR: Let me, in fact, to this point, let me ask you so we don't have to trouble the Witness: One of the things that we learned from the Stephens comments earlier was the sense that more people are being, are coming forward and being identified. When you say what's important for this Committee to hear, since we first met you in Washington a while back now, a couple of months ago, are you finding that, how is it that you were discovering folks that in fact we weren't able to find before? Is it because of the media that's been getting the word out? What's happening? Because whatever it is, it's good. We're finding more and more people that can come forward. DR. PLAIR: Three things are happening. First off, the media. Second is the family is going forward and finally sees power as a group. The other is that people in general are, are finding, as has been said here several times, better than not saying anything, and want to see something done, and also see through the Advisory Committee that there is a sincere hope that something can finally be done as a vehicle for them. THE CHAIR: Thank you. And, Ms. Goodwin, I think we have a couple of questions. DR. STEVENSON: I want to review the documents, and we can get ahold of you at a later time. THE CHAIR: Thank you again, and we assure you that we will go through this. Thank you so very much. Is Clifford Tidwell available? Clifford? PRESENTATION BY CLIFFORD TIDWELL THE CHAIR: Good morning, Mr. Tidwell. MR. TIDWELL: Good morning, sir, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here this morning to represent my father, Mr. James Tidwell. He was Patient Number 007 of the radiation study. First of all, my name is Clifford Tidwell. I'm his baby son. He was my father. I'm here this morning to speak in his behalf and for the rest of my family. I'm a person who does not get very emotional and shook, but I am mad. I am damn mad. I think it's a very rotten, low down, dirty shame that, the way my father was treated; not only my father, but the rest of the families that are represented here today. My heart goes out to all of those families, too. When I was informed to go out to University Hospital to pick up my father's medical records, I got out there and all they gave me was the radiation records. I asked them about his medical records. They told me that they couldn't find them, and they didn't know whether they would ever be able to find them. I want to know why. I think it's a low down, dirty shame after 34 years of this mess being covered up it finally surfaced. On October sixth, 1960, my father went into the Cincinnati General Hospital for a spot that was discovered in his chest. On November twenty-ninth, 19 hundred and 60, just 32 days from being in the hospital, my father died. They said he had, excuse me, they said he had a cancer. They took it upon themselves to administer to him all of those radiation rads. They started at 100 rads. Then they went to 150 rads. Then they went to 200 rads. Then they went to 250 rads, and out of all of those rads still seemed to have did my father no good. And only that I know he didn't give them any sanction for that, for them to give that to him, for he didn't know what radiation was. Matter of fact, my father couldn't even read or write. After performing the radiation study on him, since all of that radiation didn't do him any good at that time, they kept on giving him radiation. They went all the way up to 300 rads of radiation to his brain. They gave him 300 rads of radiation about four different times. All of this is in the radiation report. Why did they give him all of that radiation to the brain when there was nothing wrong with his brain when he was admitted into the hospital on October the sixth? And on November the twenty-ninth, 19 hundred and 60 was when my father expired. I was 20 years of age at that time. I was the baby boy, and I could best remember just clearly now as if it had just happened yesterday. And not only that: They kept giving him, giving it to the brain and further experiments. On January the eleventh, 19 hundred and 61, they started experimenting on, on my father's brains with a cutting. Unbeknown to anyone in the family knowing, they kept my father's brains. No one in the family knew this. No, no one in the family gave them consent to take any part of my father's body parts. Today I, I'm mad about this. And they didn't just take his brains. As I was reading further down the, the radiation reports, they took his legs. And I'm damn mad about all of that. And I'm not going to stop here. I'm not going to stop until I get some answers why they did all of this to my father. Why would anyone do something like this to another human being? And this part of what I'm going to say now is for one of the lawyers of Saenger's. He knows who he is, who made the statement that all of this was a bunch of mess and it needs to be thrown out. What I feel is like that he needs to be thrown out. And how would he feel if something like this happened to one of his family members, mother, father, or whoever? This is all I have to say at this point in time. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. The records -- thank you. But thank you. Obviously you've, you've been able to finally receive or retrieve those records? MR. TIDWELL: Right. No, no, no. Not the medical records. Just the radiation records. THE CHAIR: First of all, can we get a copy of those, those records, just a copy of those? Would that be appropriate? MR. TIDWELL: Oh, I can be, make arrangements for that. THE CHAIR: Because the Committee does not have that now. Now, in terms of the medical records, you say you are not -- oh, there are two different sets of records that you say that you have been made aware of now; that the, that the, that the records that you've been given were not the full hospital records? MR. TIDWELL: No, they were the radiation records. DR. STEVENSON: Radiation Departments often keep their own office records or personal records that are often duplicated in the general records, but wouldn't include the entire history of the patient. So it's important that we get both, but at minimal if you've got the radiation records, and that would be very helpful. THE CHAIR: Now you've said that you have asked for the general medical records and they've not been given to you? MR. TIDWELL: Right. Like I said, sir, when I went over there to get the medical records, the general medical records, I believe she was the, the Administrator, she told me that they couldn't find his medical records, and they don't think they would, that they would ever be able to find them. MS. NORRIS: Do you know if this is a unique experience, the lost medical records, or is it typical? Do you have, have a feel for that? DR. PLAIR: Let me say first of all Mr. Tidwell's family is another new family that's just joined CROCSP, and as with so many families we have found that very little information has been given the families. We've recently went over with them the chart, and this is what we've gotten out of it thus far. And like with the other families, we'll compile a more thorough information of what we have again. When this family asked for these medical records, the total medical records, this is all they got. So we're investigating all the rest. So we're struggling to do that also. THE CHAIR: Well, we'll see if we can't be of some help. It just is not clear to this Committee. We cannot understand why, and we will need to. We'll find out why people are asking for the records and don't know. A SPECTATOR: May I speak to this? I can clear this up. I am a paralegal that works in attorney Bob Newman's office. We represent Mr. Tidwell and also many, we represent most the family members that are appearing here today. We have requested from University Hospital the records that exist for each one of the radiation victims. We have received everything that they say exists. We have offered to your committee all of these records for all of these people. You said that you would, at this time, accept a partial set as a, as a, as was recommended, or you said that you might want to know later, whatever. You have some of them before, but my point today is that the attorneys have in their possession records such as we have been given at this time by University Hospital. DR. STEVENSON: I guess the question is, what are you getting from University Hospital? Okay, the very fragmentary records? Are you getting radiation? Is, are there a certain percentage of records that you requested, and of those, how many are complete and not at all complete? MR. PLAIR: I cannot answer that. Some appear to be more complete than others, but we've received some records for each person in the experiment. DR. STEVENSON: Okay, just a part of information based on my conversations with the Department, based on, on my conversations with Bob Newman, we've asked for and would like to have all of the records in our possession. DR. PLAIR: From a family standpoint we've discovered from the very beginning that it's very, very difficult to get the information from any source that we've asked for. And we view these charts even as other families have testified today, and will this afternoon, what we get is whited out, blurred out. So we've got a lot of information, got a lot of papers, but very little information. What we need to do is preview through it to see what we can get out of it. So there's a lot of, you're going to have reams and reams of paper, but not really anything that you can use and pinpoint what's going on. So this is what we're running into. THE CHAIR: Well, what we can just generally do, let me just say that I am not a, a, a lawyer. I don't know all of the technical issues about the powers of a Presidential Advisory Committee, vis-a-vis other institutions in the society, and so I don't know all of what we are able to use, our influence to retrieve and achieve. I can only say this: that as a member of the committee I'm concerned when information that's necessary and I think appropriate is not made available. There may be some reasons for that that are appropriate. I don't want to prejudge that. I don't know what those reasons could be, but I don't want to prejudge it. But I'll say this: that it is important to me as a member of this committee that we do everything in our power to get at that information and find out what's going on here. And so with that as a cautionary note, I'll just leave it with the sense that we are concerned and, and we intend to act on your concerns. DR. PLAIR: Dr. Tuckson, I may just add, if I might, and I agree with what you're saying, and I think that the institutions not only in Cincinnati, but since this is our day, but throughout the country with those trying to get the information, if this Advisory Committee, with your influence and also being a Presidential Advisory Committee, would say, "We really have encouraged the institutions to release information," that would be helpful in releasing the information, would go a long way in helping, to at least helping. THE CHAIR: All right. Thank you, Mr. Tidwell. Let me make sure from my other committee members. Any other questions? MS. NORRIS: I kind of have a question, and it is kind of a question for which I should have an answer and I don't. When did you find out that your family member had been a participant in these experiments? Was this just recently that you found out, Mr. Tidwell? MR. TIDWELL: No, to me this was around about in the first part of the year; February, I think. MS. NORRIS: Is, so it really is recent relative to the period of time? MR. TIDWELL: Right. Right. Right. MS. NORRIS: And then who told you? Who told you then? MR. TIDWELL: It was in the newspaper. MS. NORRIS: And the names were shown in, in newspapers? Is that the way you found? MR. TIDWELL: (Nodded yes.) MS. NORRIS: Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. And if you'll make available, if you, if you're so inclined, the Records that you do have to our staff, please, again, they're -- Are they still sitting where they were sitting? They've moved. You see right here, sir? Kristin is available to, to sit with you to find out how to get that information from you if you are so inclined to share it. MR. TIDWELL: All right. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you. Our, our last person, before we break for lunch is Clifford Tidwell. I'm sorry, we did Cliff. I'm sorry, Mr. Owen Thompson. Is Owen Thompson -- great. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. (Whereupon, a discussion was held off the record after which the following occurred:) PRESENTATION BY OWEN H. THOMPSON: MR. THOMPSON: Hello there. My name is Owen H. Thompson. I'm from Marion, Ohio. I live about ten miles from the Piketon/Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Processing Plant. It's been Martin Marietta. It's been Goodyear. I worked for them for 14 years. I was on special team. It, I'm a clerk. I did my country wrong. I buried dumps nobody knows about under machine-gun guard, under bond. I did jobs under, that were not covered under the Department of Energy, but at that time it was the Energy Research and Development Administration. They had a con-, they had a contract with this plant that at this time, when I was working in this one area called E Area, they were not covered under this. This was Goodyear Atomic's little game plant, their own little plant within a plant. I call it a game because we were in it for two years. I got so contaminated I'd get 50, 50 feet from a hand marion machine (phonetic) and set it off. We would get so contaminated that they did me like they did Karen Silkwood in the Silkwood movie. And for four days I stood in the showers and had two men scrub me down with boric acid until I looked like a lobster. They would call us, they could call me at any time, and they knew I'd come in. That's why they called me a special teams. So I'd get calls Saturday, you know, Saturday night, you know, "Come in." I just got maybe, sometimes I'd just get home and I'd go in. And, and they would have a hay wagon. You know what a hay wagon is? And they would have all these parts on it, and they would just, contamination was filthy, and we would get so, we would get so contaminated they would say, they would have a big dozer there that they had bought from West Virginia. It was a strip-mining dozer, and it didn't take them long to dig a big hole. And they would dig these holes and we would go in and we would dump this stuff right in on the ground. And as we were being pulled out by the bulldozer, the wagon hooked to a truck, we would see this water coming up and it would just be turning soupy green like pea soup. We would look at each other and we would wonder, "Man, is this right?" Back to the E Area. It started out in E Area. We was running 40-percent assay. It wasn't bad. It was big tins of oxide. You'd shake it down like a tapper rye, shake it. It would go through a tower. It would burn hot. Can't tell you, top secret, how hot we would get. It would go into, from there into slope tanks, and the processing of the heat would cause what uranium was left in this jug that they were giving us, that it would go into the sloop tanks and it would be plutonium, transuranic, everything that comes out of a nuclear power plant. They were looking for a way to do away with nuclear waste, and it didn't work. We were in this for two years until we got up to a point where we were running 97.6 assay uranium hexofluoride. I was burnt many times. I was so contaminated I wanted an AVIVA. We had a big release and I said, "Well, I want, I want, I want to be checked inside. I know I'm hot on the outside." So I go over to the hospital inside the plant. They had a hospital right there inside the plant, and go back to the health physics part and they could not get a Geiger counter to me. I was so hot that they couldn't get one within about three feet of me or it did not set it off at its highest rate. I mean, I had thousands of counts of radiation on my body. THE CHAIR: Let, let me, if you don't mind -- do you mind if I ask you a question? MR. THOMPSON: Sure. THE CHAIR: Or do you, or you could choose to use the rest to continue, but, I mean, well, you would have to stop here, so let me just ask you to steal a couple of minutes here. Help us to understand the, the, the role, the relationship between the employer and the federal agency. MR. THOMPSON: Okay. THE CHAIR: What, what, what was that relationship? MR. THOMPSON: The relationship was this: I was, I'm, I'm a, I'm nobody. I'm just a dumb hillbilly, big and strong. That's what they was looking for, and they hired me in, in 1975, September the eleventh, I believe it was, 1975, to do what they were saying was going to be a change-out. And what it was was the old machinery that they had put in back in the '30s and '40s was getting old and they had to either rebuild it or they had to put in new. And I was hired for seven years. Well, I, like I said, I wasn't afraid to do anything. There was not anything I was afraid of. And when they would say, "Go in and do a job," I did it, no matter what. I was inside gopher boxes like you saw in the Silkwood movie. That's the only thing I can refer to as far as vision: plexiglass, gloves, you know, rubber gloves reaching in. And we would crawl around inside these. Very primitive, very primitive means of, wrap a towel around your neck, put a face mask on, put a pair of paper coveralls on and climb in. THE CHAIR: Mr. Thompson, don't think me rude, because I really want, you're very clear about that, what you mentioned earlier. And one of the things that's important for us as we try to understand the, the, the larger dimensions of your experience. You may show that there was a federal agency involved or related with the, with the corporation, and I was trying to have you go back and teach us a little bit more about that. MR. THOMPSON: All right, when I was hired under En-, it, was under the Environmental, it was under the Environmental Research and Development Administration. THE CHAIR: Okay. And did they -- MS. SALSBURY: Could I, could I barge in just a minute? He wants to know Department of Defense and the relationship between the Department of Energy and -- MR. THOMPSON: Oh, we were, oh, we were making what was, the process of the plant was, was to take a low grade of fuel that had already been made, uranium flouride, and upgrade it to a fuel that was submarine, atomic submarine. THE CHAIR: Uh-huh. So that helps me understand. So one of the specific, and by the way, you're giving just tremendously clear information. And again, I hope you don't think I'm rude. I just want to make sure we get as much from you in the couple of minutes that we have. The, were there ever any governmental inspectors -- MR. THOMPSON: Fine. THE CHAIR: -- that came by and either gave clear criteria to the contractors for medical supervision or safety supervision? MR. THOMPSON: Well, okay, one time, and they put me right in there when I was first hired. They had it, they had run this for two years, so they had, they were going to get an inspector to come and, and inspect this to see if we, they could run it to get it certified and, but they'd been running it for two years without any certification. THE CHAIR: Uh-huh. MR. THOMPSON: So when they brought this guy -- I don't know his name. Sorry. It's been too many years ago. When they brought this guy in from the plutonium plant out in Nevada they brought him into the facility. And I remember all the big shots walking through the place with him, and when he came out they asked him, they said, "Well, what do you think of our little project?" And his exact words were, there was myself and another operator in the place at the time. We weren't running because we were waiting to see if he would say we could, but I do have to say that the slope tanks that were in there were full of the plutonium at the time. He said, "If I had my way I would dig this place up, this whole thing, and take it to Utah and bury it in lead. But being it's so big I will place my man," which he did, he said, "put a security key on this," that was supposed to be never removed. He told me and my other employee with me to never enter it again as long as it existed. Fine with us. I mean, we just got up and walked out. Then on the outside he ordered eight inches of lead shot put on the outsides of the walls, eight inches, eight inches of lead shot put on the ceiling upstairs to try to conceal the gamma and the beta radiation that was coming from this place. He said it was ridiculous; that everything we were doing in there was supposed to be done with mechanical fingers. Now, I have to say something, because I know I'm running out of time quick. From this I received two brain tumors from exposure. I received, I had to have my left ear cut off and sewn back on, and skin grafting. All my children have chronic allergies. My wife has upper respiratory problems. I have, oh, my goodness, I can hardly swallow milk. It won't go down. It's, I've burned my larynx so many times that it won't close or work right, you know, and I'll be taking a drink of milk and it will lock. I've done so many jobs that I'm so ashamed. THE CHAIR: Well, it's a big step that you shared today. Let me ask if Dr. Stevenson has one last question. DR. STEVENSON: Actually you've asked mine. I was concerned about health effects that you had suffered, and I just want to get clear. When did you leave that? MR. THOMPSON: I went into brain lock, what they call "brain lock" in 1980-, December of 1985. I went to see numerous, numerous doctors, and a doctor, well, and Doctor, Mr. Petit (phonetic) from the Industrial Information in Portsmouth sent me to a Dr. Verilleo (phonetic) first. Dr. Verilleo said he didn't know what to do about any of this. He didn't understand. He wasn't, wasn't acknowledged enough, and he sent me to a Dr. Saenger. Well, Dr. Saenger looked at all my files, -- And this is not all my files. I came very unprepared. If you want all my files, you may have, you may have them. Just, we'll have them packed again. DR. STEVENSON: Is this the same Dr. Saenger that's been mentioned? MR. THOMPSON: Yeah, it's the same one. He raped me. He raped me. He raped my files. When I, I left them in good trust. You know, I thought I gave this to Dr. Verillio and I thought -- I used to believe in the system. I used to think I had a good government behind me. I used to think, you know, I could leave my file with a doctor and when I came back I'd get my file back. But he gave it to another doctor, this Dr. Saenger. And when I get it back, I get about one-fourth of it back. Where's the rest? I don't know. I can't even get any more of it. I can't get it back. It's gone. He raped me. I get $233 a month from that place, two brain surgeries, ear cut off, tumors in both knees, and I get $233 a month retirement, medical retirement. I am sick and tired of it. THE CHAIR: We need to, to, to break and we're well past the time, but your story is one that at first we were unaware of. MR. THOMPSON: I haven't even broke the ice. THE CHAIR: We need you very much to break the ice with staff. Let's see. Let me just find the best person. Who wants to staff-wise -- Would you stand up so we can see you? Would you turn around, please, sir? This gentleman is waiting to see you, and he is particularly expert, actually, as somebody who you should talk with. And if you would do that we would be most appreciative. MR. THOMPSON: Okay. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. MS. NORRIS: I just wanted to say thank you. You told a frightening tale with great precision, and we are anxious to hear the rest of it. I hope you will share it with staff. It's overwhelming. THE CHAIR: Thank you. We are to resume at 1:25, and we will do that at 1:25. Thank you very much. (Whereupon, at 12:28 p.m. ET the participants took a brief recess and returned at 1:28 p.m. ET, after which the following occurred:) THE CHAIR: Thank you for joining us. We're going to reconvene. Let me make my usual announcement. If those that are scheduled to testify in the second half, or those who are not on the list and would like to be, should check in with Kristin, who is walking rapidly to the wall with the red tunic on, and she's available again to you if you have not checked in with her yet. We are still going to keep to our schedule of trying to limit things to about seven minutes. For those that weren't with us this morning, what we are doing is trying to give you the option as the speaker of either using all of your seven minutes, or using part of it and then leaving time for the Committee to ask questions of you. For those that will be coming to the witness table, there is a timing light that goes off at about four minutes, and so you'll start to see whatever it does in about four minutes out, letting you know that you have about three minutes remaining. If you choose, just go right through the, the, the light and just keep on going and then we'll indicate to you in seven minutes that that time is up. We don't have to be, practices as -- well, we'll still have to be pretty, pretty, pretty rigid if we're going to get out of here any time reasonable, but let me just say this again so we decrease the anxiety of the people near the end of the line and those that have newly signed up to testify. We will stay here as long as necessary to hear from everyone, so there's no need for those in the back of the line to feel anxious about, "Whoa, when is my time going to come? We're going to run out." Our planes don't leave until 9:00 o'clock. We'll talk in the cab to the airport if we have to. Having said that, let's start the afternoon session. And we're very happy to welcome Dr. Joseph Steger, President of the University of Cincinnati. PRESENTATION BY JOSEPH STEGER: DR. STEGER: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Committee. As was testified, I am the President of the University of Cincinnati. And I appreciate to opportunity to present the information of the actions taken pertaining to whole-body radiotherapy studies conducted some 20 to 30 years ago at General Hospital. We've had a complicated task, as you know, trying to find documents and papers because of the years that intervened. But we found some 14,000 pages of documents, and we've made all of this public. This was voluntary, and we have essentially released these documents, except the patients' records, of course, to the public. I have brought a set of everything, but I have, and I believe you may have another set. But I told your party that we believe these are, we will leave these, or we'll ship them wherever you need. They were released on March first through the nineteenth of June. A lot of them were on microfiche and we had to reproduce them, so, so some of the quality, I must say, is not the greatest in the world, but essentially these are everything that we could find. And I believe that we have no more to be found, frankly. The recipients included the public through the media. We have governmental offices, such as the Department of Defense, our City Council. The, also, all of these documents that have been discovered, other than those that are patient records, are at the College of Medicine, open to public access. The patient records, we found 83 out of 88 patient records. These may not be complete patient records because simply we just couldn't find everything, and secondly, some, they were, when copied from microfiche to paper are very difficult to, to read. Some of it, by the way, may have been handwriting at the time, too, but we found essentially 83 out of 88 and we can't find the other five. The copies of all the patient records have been delivered to the Plaintiffs for use in the litigation. Essentially the patient's next-of-kin, if requested, we have supplied them upon the request. The efforts to notify next of kin since this happened some 20 to 30 years ago, the University began voluntarily a hotline. We've had 1,639 calls about the possibility that a relative of theirs is, was at the hospital at that time. We have notified 41 people about their relatives that maybe did not know they were a relative. The remainders of the callers had no patient that we could identify that were involved in the, the radiation studies. The other thing we did in an effort to locate and notify the remaining patients, the University sent out tracer letters to the last known address that we could identify the patients, and we've also used a collection agency to trace these people to see if we could find them. We did result in finding five more positive identifications through the collection agency. A total of four families have been contacted as a result of the hotline and as a result of the follow-up. Forty-five had requested and received free copies of the patient's records. The remaining three families were advised of their right to a copy but have not requested them. Given the extensive local publicity surrounding it, it's likely that all the next of kin to be located have been found. At this time we believe that the uncontacted next of kin of the people who have died and moved away may still be there, but we don't know how to notify them. We also feel a social obligation and, to the surviving relatives because we're a public institution. We no longer are the same entity that conducted the research, so we have offered social support and/or pastoral counseling if they wish. We continue to cooperate any way we can. If we find any more documents we'll be glad to share them with the families or the public, depending on the nature of the information. And as I said, we believe we've essentially found everything that's going to be found. At this time I'll stop. I see the blinking light. PRESENTATION BY STAN CHESLEY: MR. CHESLEY: I'll be answering any questions. Stan Chesley, former Chairman of the Board of the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees. I'm not here as counsel to the University, although I do that in my sideline as an attorney. I am here as friend and advisor to the President. The position of the University of Cincinnati in 1993, '94, and now, is, is any and all information that we had we've made public. It is our position that there needs to be full disclosure, and a great deal of effort was done. That has been with the President of the University and me and a lot of other people. And we are here to cooperate, and we're not here in the issue of 1992 or '94 looking back in a, judging history. We have information that we feel should go public. We felt that experts should decide the pros and cons of the substantive issues. And we do not feel that it is, it is germane for this University, which is a major regional medical center, to be either a prisoner, a prisoner of history, but more importantly, to give the historical perspective, not be judgmental in either way, even though we are a defendant in a lawsuit. It is my view that, irrespective of that lawsuit, -- That lawsuit will have a life of its own and have an ample opportunity to be aired in court. -- that we as a major institution with a major commitment to medicine in this community owed a duty to help everyone find out the information. And that's why we've made this readily available and we've made arrangements to ship these documents to your office through Mr. Garcia. THE CHAIR: Let me ask this one organizational question, because I'm not as familiar as I should be with the current and present relationship of the Hospital and the University. What, in fact, was the relationship between the University and the Hospital at the time it was under question, and what is the relationship now between the University and the Hospital? MR. CHESLEY: Let me see if I can kind, it, it may not be technically accurate, but the Hospital was owned by the City of Cincinnati. It was the Cincinnati General Hospital in which our teaching faculties worked. The University back in those days was a municipal university, and so therefore, since it was, it was logical that they would have their staffing and so forth. Subsequent to that the University of Cincinnati became a state institution. When it became a state institution, and I can't pinpoint the date, there was a transition, but it was early '70s, late '60s, and at that time the University of Cincinnati state institution took over that hospital and made that hospital known as the University Hospital. But prior to that it was a completely separate entity. And I think that's bound up in some of the litigation, but historically those are the facts. THE CHAIR: Super. That helps a lot. And one, just one of the issues that is so very, very important here is the notion of, you know, the, the, the disclosure of, -- And we can turn that. That's fine. I'll be a couple of minutes. -- but is the notion of the ability for these families who are in such pain to be able to at least get access to records. And part of the real dilemma is, as you said already, that in fact only 83 of the, so five records cannot even be found, unfortunately. And then you are suggesting, you are saying to us very clearly, though, that every other record that has been discovered has been, is in, is now available to be given. DR. STEGER: Absolutely. MR. CHESLEY: Absolutely. Free of charge. Absolutely. THE CHAIR: Under whose -- and you are the final control of that ability? I mean, if you say, you are the ones who can order everyone in that hospital to turn over every piece of information on a patient to their family, the -- MR. CHESLEY: Yes. What we did in the very beginning was, in order to amass the documents, we sent a notice to every department in, at, at, that had access during that time to the hospital, to say, "If there's any patient records surrounding these incidents, we want them, or any records or any documents or anything." So most all of the departments had some pieces. Then we sent a team to go back through the archives and go through all the archives, which is a monumental task, to find anything that dealt with this, whether it was a memo or a patient record or whatever it was. And what you have is everything that we could find. THE CHAIR: Right. Well, one of the things, I don't know if, if, you probably have not had the opportunity to hear this morning's witnesses. I think that the three of us on the Committee were certainly overwhelmed by the degree of pain in so many that, that, that attends their lives even this moment. Their pain is from a variety of places, but part of their pain is the sense that, a frustration about the, the records themselves, and so that as you have been very forthright, and appropriately so, it would be, and this is up to you to do whatever you do with that, but at some point there may be some way in which dialogue may occur with, with, with those families so that they at least understand the degree with which you plan to keep with them. That just seems so very important. MR. CHESLEY: Let me make this comment. If there is any relative, bear in mind there was hundreds of people who thought that their relatives were part of the experiment, and so what we had to do was narrow it down to 88. And so there are many people, no matter how many times you say there were 88, that people say, for good reasons, because their mom or dad was in the hospital for treatment, my phone number is 621, or Area Code 513-621-0267. If there are any of the 88 families who feel that they are getting any kind of obstacles, roadblock, or not getting the right information, call me and I personally will get into it at the direction of the President. My concern is that there were five, up, back in those days there were no computers and you couldn't push a computer key and spin up the areas. They were in different areas and they were on microfiche. The other thing that we found is that not all of them are totally complete. If we have them, they will be taken off the microfiche so long as it is a family record. We will not give it to the media. Shouldn't. Can't under the Privacy Law. But if a person satisfies the requirement they're next of kin, and they don't have to be a son or daughter, and we understand it could be a nephew, niece, whatever it is, so long as they have genuine right, they'll get what we have. But I want to know. THE CHAIR: That's very proper. Let me make sure. MR. CHESLEY: If there's an obstacle or roadblock, I want to know. But my commitment to the University, because people in this community know I'm usually on the Plaintiff's side of the thing, that there are records and documents. The other thing is this was all done involv-, this was done prior to litigation or any court orders or anything. THE CHAIR: One of the things that's very important, I want to make sure I understand. What I heard is that that, that's good that we heard that. As far as you know now, they're, the incomplete records, things where things are missing, that might, you have no reason, I imagine, to think that there are things still on microfiche that would fully, you know, develop those patient records that are incomplete? DR. STEGER: No. No. MR. CHESLEY: We do not believe there's any more. However, if somebody comes -- For example, one of the reasons that you see sequential turning over of documents, it was, we were finding documents at later periods of time. Certain doctors had documents individually in their records that we didn't have. And we made it clear that, irrespective of litigation, we, as the University, felt that we had to have those records back, and made arrangements with counsel for those individual doctors. So if we come across any patient's records they will be supplemented. THE CHAIR: Do you have any reason if -- DR. STEGER: Or any other reason to believe that there's anything else. THE CHAIR: How about any other physicians who were party to the events at that time? DR. STEGER: We've asked everyone that we could identify to give us everything they have. MR. CHESLEY: And we believe they have. DR. STEGER: We believe them. MR. CHESLEY: We believe they have. Bear in mind, there are anywhere from 11 to 13 physicians, and some patients that were involved. And we trust that they understand how important this was to us, as custodian of records, to get those to us. THE CHAIR: Lois, if -- MS. NORRIS: That was just answered. THE CHAIR: Okay. Mary Ann. DR. STEVENSON: If, this morning several of the witnesses, or victims, victims' families said that sometimes the, they felt they were unintelligible because of photocopying, or some because of whiteouts or -- DR. STEGER: Let me say about some of the problems, we had to send it to a company that specializes in using microfiche. So we found the best we could find to do it. Some of it is still not good. As far as we know, that was copied off the microfiche, so there was -- MR. CHESLEY: There has been no redacting done. If there's a person who has a copy of documents that appear to be redacted or whited out, again, call me. Get me a copy of what they had. I'll go to the original microfiche and make sure, and sort out, because this, you're correct. The pain, and one of the ways to eliminate pain is to make sure that we give to these people everything that we have. THE CHAIR: Well, that's the -- no, take your time. DR. STEVENSON: No, that's what we like to hear. Thank you very much. MR. CHESLEY: And I urge this, this is not just some kind of patronizing, insidious comment. We mean it sincerely. And Dr. Steger is the head of the University, and I told him the only way I would get in it is by giving all this information. And so if somebody has redacted copies -- THE CHAIR: Would you just do one thing? That you said, because some of the audience and the people, and I think I'm hanging, may not know what "redacted" means. DR. STEGER: Changed. MR. CHESLEY: "Redacting" is a fancy legal word for "taking things out of intentionally." And bear in mind, a lot of these notes are handwritten and they're now, some of them, 40 years old. And so, therefore, 45 years old. So it's a problem. THE CHAIR: Thank you. And let me just say that, that our interest first as the Advisory Committee is to have access to the appropriate data such that we can make the reasonable conclusion that our charge holds us responsible. Secondly, it is certainly our interest as human beings to deal with pain and suffering when you see it, and I very much appreciate the forthrightness with which you have made your declaration. And I would hope that people like, like, like Dr. Gwendon Plair, Gwendon Plair and others who are part of the organized efforts of people might want to be able to help facilitate that dialogue. Also, you suggest, one of the last testimonies we took before we took, broke for lunch was just such a person who was just distraught because of that sense that he couldn't get at stuff that might exist. And so you can go, and you've said it so clearly, you can go a long way to easing pain and suffering as you participate in that process that you've already said you're more than willing to do. So perhaps people could contact you and the -- MR. CHESLEY: Let me make one technical observation. The documents are the technical documents, but we're not sending you the individual patient documents. However, if the individual members of families will give us a Release, or the, -- THE CHAIR: Right. MR. CHESLEY: -- you get a request that we send those to you based upon their permission, -- THE CHAIR: Correct. MR. CHESLEY: -- the answer is, we will send them to you, because we believe what you are doing is so worthwhile. That's the only way, technically, I know we can send those. THE CHAIR: As a Committee we certainly don't want to get much further, but we certainly are not going to be so myopic as to not take the opportunities to connect those people. I see a person in the back of the room eager to intercept you as you leave. Staff needs to tell me whether or not we need these boxes shipped on to us, or do we feel, would we have these records already? MR. KLAIDMAN: I think we have, do want them. I think Jerry already made arrangements. MR. CHESLEY: We've agreed to ship them at our expense, and they will be taken out of here. And they're being shipped to Mr. Garcia. We have his card. We're shipping them, these particular boxes. THE CHAIR: Thank you. We appreciate your testimony. DR. STEGER: Thank you. THE CHAIR: And now we will ask Mr. David Thompson to please join us. I appreciate the, the, the indulgence of the other panelists and audience, as I, I did certainly go much longer with that last group than, than I am supposed to. I just felt that, to be honest, that it was so important that we get that issue dealt with that I felt like I had to do it. And I'm going to keep back on the time schedule again, but I just felt that we had to get that information to clarify, and which took a little longer than, than the, our rules. So, now, Mr. Thompson, welcome. PRESENTATION BY DAVID THOMPSON: MR. THOMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is David Thompson. I'm a lawyer with the law firm of White, Getgey & Meyer here in Cincinnati. Our firm is one of five which represents family members of the subjects of the CUC experiments. We've brought an action in the United States District Court here in Cincinnati alleging that the Constitutional rights of our clients' loved ones, their family members were violated by the experimentation undertaken without consent of the patients and for non-therapeutic reasons. Defendants, as we just heard, include the University of Cincinnati and 11 or 12 or 13 physicians, researchers, and other scientists. At the outset let me state that those of us on the Plaintiffs' side are aware that our action against the University of Cincinnati's College of Medicine is unpopular in certain circles. It is seen as an attack upon an institution which rightly enjoyed the reputation of prestige and distinction to this city. My father is a 1947 graduate from the College of Medicine, and I was raised to believe that when it comes to saving lives and achieving medical breakthroughs, we say that there is no equal in the College of Medicine. But I also believe in the case of the radiation experiments there were many interests other than those involved which were brought into play. Let's review a few. What was the aim of the project? As stated in the 1963 report prepared by Dr. Saenger and others, these studies were designed to obtain new information about the metabolic effects of total-body and partial-body irradiation so as to obtain a better understanding of these acute and subacute infections in human beings. This information is necessary to provide knowledge and compact effectiveness, end of quote. Nowhere is cancer or cancer therapy serviced. Indeed, it appears that the intention was to cause radiation injury to subjects roughly equivalent to those that might be experienced by troops in the battle field and to determine how and what might be done to counteract the effects of radiation injury. What was the state of the subject's health at the time they were radiated? As we just heard, the medical records 30 plus years later are spotty at best. But based on at least some of the records we do have, it is clear that the researchers involved in the, the program may have affirmatively misrepresented the condition of the patients they were treating. Just one example plainly illustrates this problem. Study Number 106 was a 48-year-old White female. In a Report prepared December, 1971, Study Number 106 was described as having far advanced cancer of the colon. The patient abstract prepared on Number 106 stated that the, the presence of liver metastasis had been confirmed. She was given 300 rads of partial-body radiation to the lower body, and died 25 days thereafter. Now, the statements about her having colon cancer and confirmed liver metastasis are not true. Her medical chart shows on November 7, 1980, quote, "Biopsy of liver shows chronic passim conjection, but no evidence of tumor." End of quote. A barium enema was administered on November seventh, 1970, which was three days pre-radiation, showed her colon was normal even though she had surgery for colon cancer, and a few days later, after radiation, it turned out she had stomach cancer not described anywhere in Dr. Saenger's Report. My point here, unfortunately, is that an exhaustive review of all medical records will be required in order to fully understand what was going on. Now, was consent given? Reports provided in the early years of the research program stated that the patient was, is home, but to receive treatment help, efforts in, at the very beginning which were the aim read earlier. Instead, under the protocol prescribed for the study, telling the subjects what they would likely encounter after would have tainted results. The researchers wanted to find out who might or might not know they had it. Now, in this country, from the very early beginnings of medical research, consent of the person treated has been absolutely essential. In, in '66, Dr. J. H. Salsberg (phonetic), who was an early researcher into the cause of malaria, discontinued his human experiments on account of the difficulty of obtaining the, the consents because of the, because he needed the consent of his subject and he couldn't get it. Now, the Nuremberg Code of 1946, the AMA Code from the same era have been and will be exhaustively discussed. The Secretary of Defense has ordered, 1953, has already been mentioned by Portland and others, but the only conclusion that can be drawn is that by the time all the human radiations back in UC in 1960, any medical researcher would have known to a moral certainty that informed consent is essential. The Record is clear he did not. Now, as I see your responsibilities is about two-fold. This experiment, like the Vanderbilt experiment, like the malaria experiments, tie us, hepatitis, the whole sorry history, those experiments have been undertaken at the behest of the United States Government pursuing some "greater good" theory that they thought they were entitled to pursue. We now know in hindsight that those, those studies were inadvised and inappropriately putting the individual rights of the patients second to the supposing interests of the society, and we know that is wrong. Our, our goals from you, our request from you is to come out with a strong conclusion to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Please help us to get to the bottom of this. A weak, ambivalent conclusion on your part will not be sufficient. Now, my final point on behalf of the radiation subjects and their families is best stated in that, quote, from a Nobel prize winner who, speaking of human experimentation in a future place and time said we must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe of its own secrets, its own treasures, and with some measure of pride. THE CHAIR: Well, thank you very much. That's, I think that's very clear. Any, we really don't have -- are we out of the seven minutes completely? Thank you. You've used your time up. MR. THOMPSON: Sorry I went on going. THE CHAIR: No, that didn't bother me. Thank you. The next person I have on my list is Mr. Kenneth Kendall, and I wonder, is that Mr. Kenneth Kendall? PRESENTATION BY KENNETH KENDALL: MR. KENDALL: Thank you, sir, for inviting us. Give you a chance to get a quick cup of coffee. THE CHAIR: Yes. MR. KENDALL: Yes. I gave copies of this earlier to your staff. My name is Kenneth Kendall. I'm a Region 4 Vice-President of the National Association of Radiation Survivors, but I'm also a member of the National Association of Atomic Veterans. And essentially I'll be speaking on behalf of radiation survivors and so I'll also be mentioning atomic veterans. As a little history, I was exposed to some ionizing radiation during a five-month tour of duty in 1953 at the Nevada Test Site during the test series code-named Upshot Knothole. I was part of the U.S. Army thirty-six twenty-third Ordnance Maintenance Company of the three-hundred ninety-third Ordnance Battalion. I was 26. Our company was split in half. Half ran the motor pool at Camp Desert Rock, and the other half ran the motor pool at Camp Mercury. Camp Desert Rock was essentially the incoming and outgoing military personnel that were in the trenches. Camp Mercury was the scientists that put it together, and all the VIPs and the big wheels and everybody there. I arrived shortly after the first of January, around January the tenth, and left about June the twelfth to return for my discharge from the Service. When the Secretary of Energy first announced that they had discovered these records in the, their files that people had been used for experiments, speaking for myself, we, as atomic veterans, were quite happy that finally atomic veterans would see the light of day. It's been covered up so long. And then when President Clinton announced he was creating this presidential commission, this was a real shot in the arm. And we, atomic veterans are filled with hope that the true light of our being used as guinea pigs will now be known to our country, and also, at last, that the subject of people being used as human guinea pigs would be brought to the, to the people of the country. Following the announcement of the finding of records, there was a deluge of various things like radioactive material being placed into the cereal for the children in New England, and the pregnant women around Nashville, Tennessee, were exposed to radiation, and so on like that. But nothing was, ever came out about anything with the atomic veterans. And we feel like we are again being ignored in that aspect. Then I later found an article in the paper from the Department of Energy that said they wanted to hear from people who might have been exposed, and they had a hotline. And I called the hotline to give them some information. While I was on the phone they gave me a code number to identify myself and requested some information from myself. I sent this on in and all the proof I had, and mailed it in. Shortly then I received, not shortly, but I did receive a letter from the Department of Defense thanking me for contacting the national hotline. And it said that everything on me had been re-sent over to the Department of the Defense and then to the Defense Radiation Experiments Command Center for consideration, and finally back to the nuclear test review that has been, to many veterans have been under all along. And then next I was to receive a letter from the Defense Nuclear Agency wanting again all the same information that I had sent in before. And what I'm trying to do now is to talk to you to convince you that there is really no difference between the civilian human guinea pig or a military human guinea pig. We had the uniform. That was the only thing that was on, and we had a serial number behind the names. We had no real protective clothing or anything, and after marriage in October of 1953, two of our children died of mysterious, unexplained causes. Autopsy was done on them, and it was a virus in the 1950s. "Virus" was a catch-all for anything that they didn't know what it was. And we've had two other children, both girls, that have lived with both serious and life-threatening health problems. And both of these have given birth to a male child, and we worry and wonder if anything will show up with them. And all I really am doing is making a request, is that you will include in your findings the atomic veteran as being a part of the radiation experiments as a whole; not push us off to the sides to the tender mercy of the Veterans Administration, because we do not receive nothing but begrudging care from the VA. There's two other things I added here. One of the hard things we have to accept is that our country we always thought was better than any other country because we didn't experiment on people like they did in World War II and stuff like that. And now we know that our country is just as guilty. And mention was made earlier on the question about people signing consent forms, and military people being asked if they wanted to participate. And we come from the time when the doctor was next to God. The doctor said, "You'll need to operate," the doctor said you needed this, you didn't question this fellow or doctor, whoever it was, male or female. You went ahead and did it. You didn't question. And as far as us in the military, we weren't given any consideration. When they said "go," we went. When I went to Korea, I laid my life on the line there. And also when I went to Nevada. THE CHAIR: Let me, first, you've given a very eloquent statement, and as we ask you a couple of quick questions let me say first of all that you can be assured that in our report we will not be pushing off the atomic veterans to the side. MR. KENDALL: Thank you very much, sir. THE CHAIR: We took some extraordinary compelling testimony, as was yours, in our recent testimony taken in San Francisco where we were able to get a number of interesting leads that the staff is now pursuing. And let me also say that one of the ways in which you can help us a great deal, I was a little saddened by a quick comment that one of the earlier witnesses made about a particular member of our Committee, who felt that, that he may have thought that occupational exposure in the course of military duty was insignificant. That, that actually does not reflect what our committee member believes. And not, it wasn't appropriate to challenge that point in the time, but it made me sad, because I don't think he quite understood what our Committee member was saying. But be that as it may, irregardless of what that, that difference we may have, what you can help us to do is try to help us think through and try to understand the, the, the relationship between "occupation" and "exposure," and things that happened in the course of, of one's work and, and what safeguards, and so forth, ought to be, you know, presented for them, that worker. MR. KENDALL: Yes, sir. THE CHAIR: And I don't, that I think is a long-term discussion we need to have with you and members of your community. And I would just hope you would work with us in helping to make us smarter about making recommendations in those areas. MR. KENDALL: Yes, sir. I'd be more than pleased. As going further on, like the young men that were exposed in the Gulf War, and they have these maladies, and they're getting onto these quicker, and this is a great help. THE CHAIR: If you'll want to turn to Mary Ann to get a couple of questions in? DR. STEVENSON: One of our previous speakers stated that he was ultimately contacted by the VA and told he was exposed to ionizing radiation. Were you ever contacted, or were, if you, was it ever stated to you that you were exposed? MR. KENDALL: No. Only when I was discharged on my papers it put, "Slight amount of radiation." And I was never counseled on anything like I should see the VA or anything, or counseled whether I should be a father or not. DR. STEVENSON: You were never told to have any particular medical follow-up or anything? MR. KENDALL: And then never any follow-up, and then in 1990 I started doctoring with the VA then. But the VA never contacted me. I did receive one small thing of records that showed three times in the '50s, late '50s that my records were transferred from St. Louis to the Chicago VA Center. And I was not doctored by the VA or anything, but these, though, show me that my records were being sent for further study and consideration as a, as a guinea pig. THE CHAIR: Excuse me. That's, let me just make sure. You're saying that your records show a, a trail where they had been sent from storage -- MR. KENDALL: To the VA center in Chicago. THE CHAIR: And, and then sent back from there? MR. KENDALL: And then sent back, yeah. THE CHAIR: Without your having initiated any activity? MR. KENDALL: Yeah. I had no contact with the VA at that time. No contact at all. MS. NORRIS: And that was not explained to you? MR. KENDALL: No, it was not explained. MS. NORRIS: I did have one more question. In terms of your exposure to ionizing radiation, was, was this because you were at a test site at the time that tests were being conducted as a member or part of the motor pool, or were you considered volunteer for specific -- MR. KENDALL: To, to go out to the, in the trenches, they -- MS. NORRIS: Yes. MR. KENDALL: No, I was part of the motor pool. They sent us out to run the motor pool and all. And I was there for 11 atomic bombs. And I was never in the trenches. The closest I ever was to a detonation was four miles, and the furthest was ten miles. And the day following the detonation we went back to the detonation area to retrieve materials. They used a lot of cars that year, and we pulled them with wreckers, and we saw like that. One other thing about records I'd like to speak is, I've been trying to get records. I know I'm going way over time. Been trying to get records, so I have a family member who has, in the Judge Advocate's Department in Washington, D.C., is a lawyer. I asked him to see if he could try. And this past February he reported that even with his pull there he was unable to get any records for me. He got up to the point where they were stamped "Classified." The biggest bulk of records are stamped "Classified" on, on myself, and therefore, I can get bits and pieces, but I can't get the entire records. And this is, and this is not just for myself alone. This is all veterans, all atomic veterans. DR. STEVENSON: I just have one more quick question. Were you aware of any monitoring that was done on you? Again, were you wearing a film badge, or were you aware of anybody who swept the area before you went in to collect things? MR. KENDALL: Yeah, I recall our group had film badge, and we didn't put our name or serial number on it. We would just wear a badge. Once a week or twice a week we would pull them off and put them in the bucket and was given a new one. And so, therefore, they weren't identified as to who they were. This radiation monitor one time on a bus of VIPs that I drove out to the site the day before the explosion, and he got out with his Geiger counter and slide rule, and him, wanting to be a little more official, he said, "I think they only allow you to stay in this area for eight- to ten minutes, because if you were in this area for like 30 minutes you'd be like southern fried chicken." And he said this to a busload of VIPs and stuff. THE CHAIR: Well, Mr. Kendall, thank you. One would be, one or two requests. I'm very serious about, as you speak to other atomic vets in the organizations that you're involved in, we really do need help in the next month to, as we can through the, the, the very subtle and complicated issues of occupational issues at, to exposure, versus the, the so-called "experimental exposures." MR. KENDALL: Experimental, uh-huh. THE CHAIR: And there's a fine line there about responsibilities and special safeguards, and so on and so forth, some of which Dr. Stevenson tried to ask you. And so we would like you to get with staff, and if you can find a way of connecting with us and giving us your best ideas on the subject we would most appreciate it. MR. KENDALL: Thank you, sir. I would be happy to do that survey. THE CHAIR: If next, Mr. Tom Wilkinson, and after Mr. Tom Wilkinson we have Mr. Tom Row, and then Joe Larkins, and then Ms., or Ms. Monica Ray. That will be the order for the moment. Wilkins. PRESENTATION BY TOM WILKINSON: MR. WILKINSON: I would like to make a statement. First of all I'd like to thank the Committee for making this thing possible. Even though you are a little late, you're here. I'd like to thank all the members of the families that came here and stood up. I appreciate that. That took a lot of courage to stand up. I've got some comments about Dr. Saenger, and I want you all to know his role is a lot more than just testing these victims' relatives here. I'll get into that in just a minute. There have been some comments here today about, you said you would not cover up in no way. Now, I believe that. I believe you're sincere, too. Give a few warnings, though, and to side step, you're not going to sidestep. You're not going to push off the vets. But you're up against a big flood. And let me make a comment here and then I'll get back to Doc Saenger. I live down three air miles from a monitor from the A-Plant. I feel like I'm a radiation victim. There are none here. That's not any reason for it not being here. I want to show you something. Anyone living very close to a nuclear plant is in reality a human experiment. How close is close? We don't know. Someone says one mile, three miles, ten miles. Nobody knows. And if the wind is blowing that way, you're a downwinder. I live near a monitor. This monitored the second highest reading the last time it was monitored. It was contamination. Now that air monitor has been removed. And the reason I'm telling you this is that if someone comes up and comes up with consent forms, I'm telling you, they'll do anything to win. Why, what logic could anyone have in removing an air monitor that was the second worst reading of the plant? Looks like they would have put more in, not remove that one. I feel like we're human experiments, and I feel like anyone living that close is in a human sacrifice. So I know. And what I mean by that, see, the pipeline story has never been told. They've covered it up for 40 years and they're still covering it up. Right now you can drive down through there yourself, right now, and there's 17,000 drums, sill there of 14 ton each uranium hexoflouride. It's been there for 40-some years, some of it has been. And they're rusting. They're leaking. And when that goes in the air, that's toxic. And if you come downwind you are a human experiment if you're living close to that. They haven't done anything about it yet. Piping, piping haven't even been put on the SuperFund yet. Somebody's working hard to keep the piping story from being told. And it's time it's been told. Residents around there seen the quality of their animal life go down, their human life go down for a lot of years. You can check the streams down there. Sometimes you'll see dead fish floating down. I don't mean one. I mean every fish in the creek. You catch fish with lesions. You catch fish with half a side. I've killed deer. The meat's green. There's a serious problem down there and it's the human radiation problem. I'm here to talk about the experiments that they do there. Now, my warning to you is, one time when we found all this out, this has been five years ago, we got a chart and it was a chart comparing the heart and cancer death rate of Pike County with the balance of Ohio. Now, we placed that chart around and it was very damaging. They seen something had to be done, and the president of the Environmental Advisory Board put an article in the paper that this chart was, quote, "obviously a fake." Now, the lady that wrote that, made the chart, she's 90 years old now. She's a school teacher. She's still living in Clayton, Ohio, and she got a (sic) award from the Health Department for making that chart, and that's what they said in the newspapers. "It was obviously a fake." Now, that worked because they got media control in southern Ohio. They control the media down there. Another thing we done, we got a water test on the state park. I'm talking about public water people go out and pump up themselves. It came back contaminated. It took us over a year to get them to shut that park down, because they didn't want anything to come out about it. It took over a year to get the park shut down, even though it was, it's just a few miles from the plant. It was contaminated. I'm telling you, you're up against a big thing here. Now, there's people here testified today about, one fellow testified that he really felt bad because his dad couldn't have done a consent form because he couldn't read or write. Now, there's a mobile home park that's a stone's throw of that plant down there. There's retarded kids there. There's deformed children. There was a two-headed goat. There's turtles solid black. There's all kinds of deformities. So we decided to have a water test. We had an appointment to get a test with the trailer next to the well. And this park was built for the construction workers when they first built the plant, and it's there now. And really, the low-income people live there. On Sunday -- we had the test for Monday. On Sunday a bulldozer came in there, pulled the casing out of the well and covered it up. This is the kind of stuff that you're up against. I mean, they will meet you with big resistance. Now, my remarks about Dr. Saenger. I have heard his name so often before I came to Cincinnati. I would like to read one quote by him. He said, "There have been very few people with a vision to do what we did. I don't make any [apologize,] apologies for it all. I think it was darn good work. The only real regret I have is that we didn't do more." Well, thank God somebody stopped him, that they didn't do more, or we would have run out of people. That Dr. Saenger is responsible for a lot of things in my area. I can tell you that the Industrial Compensation down there, they had a case from our atomic plant for, where someone fell and broke their back or arm, they, they got their money. If they went in there with a radiation claim, they sent them to Dr. Saenger. That was the end of the story. When they went to Dr. Saenger, they got refused. THE CHAIR: Mr. Wilkinson, thank you very, very much for your testimony. It's been very compelling. Of course, we won't have the opportunity to ask any questions because you speak for, explain so straightforwardly. You use the term Piketon; if you could explain to us where that is? MR. WILKINSON: P-i-t-k-e-n (sic), but it's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. There's a lot of skeletons buried there, fellows. THE CHAIR: Mr. Tom Row. Am I pronouncing that correct, sir? MR. ROW: Yes. THE CHAIR: Thank you. That's the first one I've got right today. Wait a minute, Mr. Row. I think we may have a copy of your testimony. PRESENTATION BY THOMAS H. ROW: MR. ROW: I appreciate the, the Committee's invitation to come and testify before you. My name is Thomas H. Row. I'm employed by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, and work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where I'm a senior staff assistant to the Director. I'm the Martin Marietta Energy Systems Manager for the Human Studies Project, responding to the Secretary of Energy's request for full disclosure of all information pertaining to human studies with and deliberate releases of radioactive material. Our responsibility is to manage the response from five plants operated for the Department of Energy. These are Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12, K-25 Plant in Oak Ridge and operated by Martin Marietta Energy systems; and the Paducah and Portsmouth, Ohio, the gaseous division plants operated by Martin Marietta Utility Services. The Oak Ridge Reservation was established in 1942 to provide assistance to the Government during World War II. The graphite reactor and hot cell were initially constructed in the facilities in 1943. In the years that followed the, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Y-12 Weapons Production Plant, K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies, and Oak Ridge Associated University were constructed and operated in Oak Ridge. In addition, two other gaseous diffusion facilities, one in Paducah, Kentucky, and one in Portsmouth, Ohio, were built and managed by the Oak Ridge office of the Atomic Energy Company and its successors. Today these facilities are managed for the Department of Energy by several contractors. In December, 19 and 93, Martin Marietta Energy Systems began a systematic search of old records to identify the human experiments with radioactive material, or deliberate release of the material. This involved the five plants managed by Martin Marietta for DOE: ORNL, Y-12, K-25,Paducah, and Portsmouth. Definitely all plant managers were notified of the search and the importance to this. A team of records managers, information specialists, scientists, quality assurance specialists, engineers, health physicists, and senior managers was established. A methodic review of all pertinent records is under way. To date, thousands of nut-, cubic feet of documents have been searched, inquiries have been surveyed, and medical and health business records searched to identify relevant material. One hundred fifty documents have been placed inside the reading room. Seventy-four are in processing, and 50 more are awaiting review. I'd like to discuss a number of facts relevant to the subject and to provide a short summary of the highlights today. On August second, 19 and 46, Clinton Laboratory, now known as ORNL, made the first radioisotope shipment to a hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. The Atomic Energy Commission was supplier of isotopes until private industry developed capacity to do this. The Laboratory still delivers some isotopes, and has an ongoing research program to identify new medical applications. Oak Ridge Associated University formulized a code of the ethics for human experimentation and established a human-use committee for review of work at ORNL and ORAU in 19 and 67. This is still a functioning committee for review of proposed work involving human subjects. Work cannot be performed at either facility without this committee's review and approval. The documents placed in the Human Studies Reading Room at Oak Ridge identify a number of experiments and releases. Let me review some of these to give you a feeling for the work that was done. In 19 and 45 the Health Physics Division of ORNL exposed two groups of ten each employee volunteers to one-inch metal disks, disks with one side coated with Ph-32, placed in the forearm and in the thigh. Purpose was to provide the human information regarding problems to beta radiation. Two field experiments were performed in 1948 using encapsulated lanthanum and tantalum radioactive sources. The sources were taken to a large field on the reservation, where they were placed, and measurements made of the resulting pattern of radioactivity. The sources were then collected and returned to storage at the laboratory. This was part of a Department of Defense, the program investigating non-explosive nuclear weapons that might be deployed in war time conditions. In the early '50s the Neurology staff of Massachusetts General Hospital hoped to find a possible radiological cure for inoperable brain tumor patients. They proposed to inject uranium solutions into the patients, and if it, if it preferentially was absorbed by the tumor tissue to bombard the tissue with neutrons. The resulting radioactivity would kill the tumor cells. Eleven patients in the terminal stage of central nervous system disease were given intravenous diluted uranium that were supplied by ORNL. Poor selective uptake by the tumor tissues resulted, and it, the concept was dropped. However, body fluids and tissues from autopsies were analyzed at ORNL to follow the elimination of the uranium from the body. This provided information to be used to predict the behavior of the uranium in workers accidentally exposed in the Oak Ridge vicinity. In the mid-'60s a young woman was involved in a motorcycle accident and actually ejected the femur from her leg. Doctors at University of Tennessee hospital asked if ORNL could assist in sterilizing the bone for reinsertion. After irradiation at ORNL, the bone was successfully implanted and the woman recovered. Early in the 1960s five male volunteers injected resin treated milk containing protein-bound Iodine-131 to help in better understanding the iodine uptake in the thyroid and the elimination rate. Later, in 1968, ORNL scientists analyzed tissue samples, tissue samples from Washington State prison inmates who participated in the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation at Seattle, Washington, work to determine spermatozoa response to X-ray exposure. Uranium hexafluoride releases through the environment, releases to the environment were made in 1955 and 1974 at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. These releases were for the purpose of understanding material behavior, and to provide input to dispersion modeling work. Also, UF6 container tests were conducted at the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant in 1965 to determine in the cylinders would hydrostatically or explosively rupture, and identify the time available for firefighters, and determine the degree of contamination related to the type of UF6 release, wind velocity, and terrain. The work discussed here is representative of our findings in the ten months of effort to date. We believe that the system we've put in place is successful in identifying document collection to be researched, and that we are recovering the documents of interest to this project. As part of our review we have carefully examined our ongoing approval process for human studies, and will be making changes that will further strengthen our approval mechanism. Thank you for the opportunity to present the Committee with an overview of the Oak Ridge efforts to comply with this process. THE CHAIR: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Row. Let me just say that even though the, the, the red light is on us and we have your statement, I, I just wonder, I don't know. Were you with us earlier today at all, or you just came in? MR. ROW: I came about mid-morning. THE CHAIR: First of all, yes, your testimony is of interest. There's no question. And we thank you for taking the time to come. But to be frank, it, it, it, it doesn't get at actually with what so much of, of, of what we're interested in. To be frank, it just doesn't quite get at it. I think that what we really want to try to understand about the past and the present is a sense that for the human studies projects that you would be engaged in, would be helping us to look at the notion of the informed consent, the notion of how patients in the study were counseled; helping us to understand how those with adverse outcomes, even when properly counseled, were followed up; what kinds of, of, of, of ongoing long-term interventions were available to those people as they lived the rest of their lives, and those sorts of things. And I'm wondering, while certainly appreciative of what you shared with us, if your committee is, is looking at those kinds of issues as well. MR. ROW: Yes. One of the reasons for presenting this review is to help you discriminate between the different types of operations that have occurred in Oak Ridge. There has been a, a lot of testimony presented, and lots of information given to you relative to other facilities that are operated there that are very different from those that we operate, and that, those that I represent and discussed with you today. The Laboratory and these operations have definitely been involved in a medical hospital operation. We do not have hospital facilities as part of what we do. Some of our scientists on occasion will collaborate with those at other institutions, but Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies is operated by a different contractor, and that is the facility with the medical facilities in Oak Ridge. What I can respond to in terms of consent forms is to say that in most of the experiments conducted in the laboratory such as the Phosphorus-32 or the Iodine, the people involved were primarily members of the research staff involved in that particular activity. As best as we can determine, their volunteering for this was as part of the research. They were partners in conducting. There is mentioned later, in their medical records, but we do not find any consent forms in connection with those conducted in the early '50s. If you look at the experiments conducted with the original Human Research Committee, there are consent forms in the record files of the committee for all of the work that was conducted. THE CHAIR: And for example, again I'm taking a little bit of liability with the time, which I'm not allowed to really do, but I think, you know, when you mentioned the kinds of programs like the X-ray exposure to spermatozoa in the prison inmates and that sort of thing, I mean, those are the, those, I, again it becomes very important that we begin to understand the type of criteria that I'm looking at. MR. ROW: Sure. And I think here the differentiation of finding who has primary responsibility in obtaining that particular patient's concurrence. Those experiments were started at a later date in the experimental phase. When we were asked to participate because we had scientists on staff who had experimental equipment as well as background of history of analyzing tissue samples for certain effects, so they were sent to us secondarily in the experiment, and we were asked to analyze those based on a certain number of questions that they were asking. In that particular case we would not have any consent forms, given the scenario that they were initially developed by the scientists in that group. THE CHAIR: Well, you've owned up. First of all, thank you again. I do hope that staff will make sure that we're able to, if we haven't already, had a continuing dialogue with you. I think, just for example, just as a notion of, of, of some of the things that are of interest to us, I can appreciate the different responsibility when you are analyzing tissue samples from a project that was conducted in another site with another, or, or another administrative body, another organizational unit which is completely detached from you. Part of our difficulty in terms of the challenge for us is when different governmental agencies sponsor different kinds of projects at different locations, but then have them connected at some level. It's for us to try to understand at what level does Government, or is Government aware of those different articles, and when those two differ, then who has responsibilities and who doesn't. Are, is there an implied, shared responsibility or thinking through this issue? Do the, the scientists who have their own constraints of just examining tissue samples, are they in, aware of, or in any way connected to the other aspect to the projects? And so is there some essential of, of, of how do we? And it's not just so much the matter of looking retrospectively, but I think prospectively. So one who's in a position sort of like you is in a very good position to help us think about what happens in the future so that all arms in the study, perhaps, are talking to each other to make sure we are all acting properly. So I appreciate your being here and sharing these kinds of topics. MR. ROW: I assure you that we're taking every step we can to make sure that anything done in the, the, the, the future is done with the best judgment. THE CHAIR: I'm sure staff are familiar with Mr. Row. We are, are very familiar. Thank you. Mr. Joseph Larkins. Welcome. Oh, Mr. Joe Larkins. How you doing? PRESENTATION BY JOSEPH LARKINS MR. LARKINS: Yeah. THE CHAIR: Glad to finally meet you. Finally get your turn. MR. LARKINS: I want to thank you for letting me up here. My dad, Earl Larkins, of course, is a memory now, but two years before his untimely death, in June of '71, he underwent several surgeries. It seems like he underwent for everything except what he went in for. And a month before that he told me what he had, and before that there was no notations of anything having to do with cancer. He was diagnosed with everything from urinary tract infection, from gallstones, but I guess that's an exhibit. And like I said, about a month before he died they told him. Of course, he already got sick from what all tests doing. From, in the records there are no known data as much as six months past his death. They're still taking care of him. It's in the records. And let me emphasize. My dad was a living, breathing human being with a wife, children, grandchildren, and he was not just a set of numbers at that time. Dr. Saenger and his associates were well compensated for what they did. It seems they did not compensate the patients and their families. And in closing, let me say that it is really, this very morning I learned that the then famous Dr. Saenger has cancer. And I wonder if he might suggest to his physicians that he himself be given this same 300 rads of radiation which my dad got. Of course, he died 80 days after he got his. But anyway, I wouldn't wish cancer on nobody, but seems like this is just poetic justice if, and none of this has been fair to the families or anyone else. THE CHAIR: Mr. Larkins, thank you. Let me ask you just a quick, you may have said it and I didn't hear it, your father's name? MR. LARKINS: Willard Larkins, Patient Number 109. THE CHAIR: Willard Larkins, Patient 109. Okay, do you, how old were you when he was going through that? MR. LARKINS: Around 30. THE CHAIR: So you were a grown man? MR. LARKINS: Yeah. THE CHAIR: What do you recall? MR. LARKINS: Well, I was, I was at the General Hospital a few times, and also many of these people know there are wards with 40 or 50 beds in them, for 50 beds, whatever. I was under the impression then, I still think so, there were all kinds of different conditions in these wards and anybody could have gotten them, I guess. And I have heard a gentleman say that his dad thought they were trying to kill him. And now I say the same thing. In this course my dad said, "What are they trying to do? Seems like they were trying to kill me." THE CHAIR: Do you still, again, this is still important to us, the conversations with the treating medical team about the nature of the therapy, or was it called "therapy," even? What would be the nature of counseling regarding what the, what was going on and why it was happening? MR. LARKINS: Well, he never said anything to me like any kind of radiation treatment. He kept saying to me at times, "Oh, I don't know what they're going to do now. You know, it's always something different." DR. STEVENSON: So you don't know specifically when he got the radiation? MR. LARKINS: When he took the -- DR. STEVENSON: It was the conversation just immediately before, or just after? MR. LARKINS: You know that he talked. No, that was the only thing. That was the only thing he said; they'd done something else. MS. NORRIS: Do I understand, understand you correctly to believe that he did not have cancer? MR. LARKINS: No, because out of two years it was never cancer. It wasn't even a tumor. And then he had gallstones three or four times, and they kept sending him home with the bags. And they would go in, take them out, and send him back home. THE CHAIR: Well, listen. Thank you very much, Mr. Larkins. We're very, we know how to reach you. We have your card, and so thank you so much. MR. LARKINS: Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you. Ms. Monica Ray. I don't know whether it's Ms. or Mrs., but if you will correct me and get, get me straight, -- MS. RAY: It's Ms. THE CHAIR: Okay, Ms. Monica Ray. PRESENTATION BY MONICA RAY MS. RAY: Yeah. First of all, I'm one of the granddaughters of Amelia Jackson, Case Number 067. And I normally don't come to these hearings, because this is really depressing, you know. And I notice today you don't have a big crowd as they normally have, and I guess a lot of, of the people's relatives are really getting fed up, you know. It's getting really hard on them. But since I was listening to my sister, Gloria, -- I can't talk -- and I was listening to all of the rest of the people, and it's like, you know, I'm, I'm a disabled American veteran. Did ten years in the Air Force and I'm a DAV because of some surgeries I had while I was in the military which caused me not to be able to have any kids. You know, it's really devastating to me to have to find out that this military had anything to do with this. And I also worked for DOD, NAVOP for a while. And I was thinking about my grandmother, see. I recall. I was 11 years old when she died, and I remember her. As a child I know for a fact that if she had been able to be here she'd have had a great impact on my life, because I've been through a lot of things that maybe I could have avoided going through, you know. And then I remember how she looked when she died, and I feel for these people. And it's sad. And I keep hearing about all these documents that have been scratched out and whited out and blacked out, and it's like, it's, it's amazing to me. It's like a movie. It's like a nightmare. And then they tell me about, you know, I believe you're not going to help cover it up, but it's certainly going on. And we all know it. You know, and I just, I'll be so glad when it's over with. And you know, it's not about the money. It's just that this needs to be brought to the light. Everybody needs to find out exactly what's going on to prevent this from happening to other people. And you know, I just wanted to tell you how I felt about it. And that's all I have. THE CHAIR: Thank you. That's, I wouldn't say that's all. I mean, that's, I wouldn't put that adjective to it. I want to thank you to what you shared, and hope, just thank you for coming. If, did Mike Jaekel, and I may be pronouncing that incorrectly, did Mike Jaekel appear yet, or come in yet? How about, was it Jackie Gaynes? Is she available yet? Jackie Gaynes? And Garnell (phonetic) Johnson, Jr.? How about Garnell Johnson, Jr.? All right. We're going to take a quick ten-minute break and come back with Group 4. And we're moving along quite well, actually, so thank you. (Whereupon, at 2:46 p.m. ET the participants took a brief recess and returned at 2:58 p.m. ET, after which the following occurred:) THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. We're going to resume, and I, for those that are new and just coming in, for those that are new and just coming in, if you have not, if you are scheduled to speak, or you would like to speak and have not yet been scheduled, the person to see is, is Kris, who is walking around in the, the red jacket with the faux closings. It's a new jacket she just got in San Francisco. She's very proud of it. And she'll never speak to me again. Our Group 4 will have us hearing first from Mr. Gene Branham, Branham, and then from Mrs. Dorothy Swenty and Mrs. Pat Wheeler, Mr. Robert Hager and Mrs. Katherine Hager, Mr. William Cummins, Mr. Manuel Blaz and Mrs. Ruth Blaz, and then Ms. Jackie Kittrell. But first we invite Mr. Gene Branham to join us. Mr. Branham, am I saying your name properly? MR. BRANHAM: Close. THE CHAIR: Would you please get me closer? PRESENTATION BY GENE BARNHAM: MR. BRANHAM: It's Branham, B-r-a-n-h-a-m. Thank you for the opportunity and the invitation. THE CHAIR: Mr. Branham, would you try that other one? I think it's a little louder and the audience wants to hear you. MR. BRANHAM: How's this? THE CHAIR: Much better. MR. BRANHAM: I thank the panel for the invitation and the opportunity. I've been asked by Dan Guttman, one of your associates, and I think I have to say without Mr. Guttman's invitation I would not be here. He has the integrity and the character that impresses me. And I feel comfortable that this will not be another charade as we saw in the past; that something may come of this. As I said, my name is Gene Branham, and I work at the Fernald Atomic Nuclear Site which is located approximately 20 to 25 miles northwest of Cincinnati. I've been employed there 42 years. I'm currently a union representative, the vice-president of the Labor Council. Have been a union official in some capacity for 34 years. I might add that we represent all the in-house union labor in the 14 international unions. I've been asked to speak on the, what we commonly refer to as the DOE body-snatching program. You probably hear it more commonly referred to as a Federal Transuranic Rads Unit. I understand you've had other speakers on the West Coast, and I see other members on the panel which have more knowledge. So some of your questions might be more appropriately addressed to him when the time comes. This concept was covert. It originated in San Diego, California, 1956. The originators were the Fernald employees, Mike Bowback (phonetic), Bob Heatherton (phonetic), and Dr. Quicken (phonetic). Bowback and Heatherton didn't have no knowledge nor any history of the medical background whatsoever. From the outset, one of the big problems was, and they recognized it early, not being able to get nuclear workers' bodies prior to interment or embalmment. They had no value once these two processes took place. So the body parts and the diseased organs were extremely important. The plan failed in the early stages for the mere reason they couldn't get enough nuclear workers' bodies, and they couldn't get them behind them. Realizing this, in September of '63, in Seattle, the same three took a lead position in modifying the program. In doing so, the modification was to enlist the aids, the aid of local coroners to enlist assistance from pathologists and Emergency Room attendants; in addition, have their own employees monitor those coroners, those inflow workers who they knew had terminal disease. By doing this they could claim the body parts prior to embalmment and interment, and this would certify studies that they would pretend to be involved in. As you know, for a study to be certified it must have peer review in order to qualify for grants. In addition, they attempted to avoid the liability in pursuit of Worker's Compensation by the workers. And if those diseased organs are never available, it is extremely difficult for medical people to testify as to the origin of your sickness or to your illness. In order to get credible participation, people of coroners' staffs, Hamilton County, for example, the county you're in right now, Dr. Frank Cleveland has been the Coroner here for the past 28 years. He has a great deal of knowledge, and you should remember the name. And he's well aware of the documents that I have to support my position. Otherwise I'd be faced with liability calling the name public of this nature. His participation had been unmasked. The mere idea of him lending this effort has influenced others, although to my knowledge there is no written contract. He was approached from a patriotic perspective, doing your part for the country, supposedly the right thing for the right reason. And as a result, they've had a great deal of success. I should point out, in the state of Ohio it is not against the law under the Atomic Act of '54 to do these sort of, of medical experimentations if you get the body before it's buried. And if you share the results with all parties that it may tend to help, including groups of workers, agencies, and what have you. But they have, the Oak Ridge Association of Universities, -- And you want to mark that one down, don't let these fellows get away. I'll catch that in a moment. -- they have a policy, it's in the last paragraph of Page 26 of their charter, which tells you that as long as one nuclear worker is alive, you don't have to share the information. In creating that charter it associated me with the body-snatching program at the taxpayer's expense. Thirty-five and 40 years of it could be most people now, we've been deprived of. That within itself should be enough to motivate you to, to go all the way, the whole nine innings. In 1981, in order to get more bodies, the DOE made an appeal to the workers throughout the country to, it was in May of '81, to buy our livers. They offered us $500 each. We would sign an agreement that upon death they could claim the body, without any legal obligations to perform a nuclear autopsy. And I won't take a lot of time going into the difference between a standard autopsy and a nuclear autopsy, because I'm sure you guys all know what I'm talking about. In doing so you could name a beneficiary that would receive your money, but upon your death, in claiming the body, performing a nuclear autopsy, and then determining the value of it, you may receive, or your beneficiary may receive a lesser amount of money, depending on what they thought the value was. I'm glad to say that the workers, the workers took no part in that. We, we were against that. DOE did all these things without the workers' informed consent, nor the knowledge nor approval as surviving spouse or the nearest living relative. Now, I understand that a, one of the priorities on your job is to determine informed consent, and you should know that there was none, and there is none as of today in this particular area. And this function is still being carried on today. Mortuary was in Hanford, Washington. Parts of it is still there with the vets operating. As we talk, they've now affiliated themselves with the University, Washington University. And as you know, you've got to have a comparison factor. That means a body from the private sector. There's a document, Dan Guttman and Mr. Klaidman, Mr. Steve Klaidman, I think is his name, -- MR. KLAIDMAN: About as close as he got yours. THE CHAIR: Thanks a lot. That's my friend. MR. BRANHAM: I'm sorry about that. THE CHAIR: We're going to have to have, to start to bring it to closure, but -- MR. BRANHAM: Well, it, you want to say, it took me 40 years to get there. You could let me chatter on for 30 damn minutes. A SPECTATOR: Go ahead, Mack. MR. BRANHAM: I won't take long. THE CHAIR: Go ahead. I'm sorry. MR. BRANHAM: Well, Dan said if I could quote, if I could cite one outstanding example, that may be most helpful to you. Then I may cite one. A worker 45 years of age, a welder by trade, Millersburg, The Mounds, which is approximately 50 miles north of here, the B.J. Carpenter, he was six-foot-six, weighed 300 pounds. He could have played for the Dallas Cowboys. He was built that way, too. He was the fire chief of the local town, Carlisle, Ohio. Part of his job was to work on the moon buggy, the shields on the Challenger, as you recall, that, the heat reflectors, the problems there. And he dealt with, with, thorium, tritium, plutonium. He became ill. His family, knowing the business that he was in where we oftentimes had requested the family to have a vigil to guard the bodies to make sure the DOE can't get ahold of them before we can bury them properly, asked us, and with Mr. B. J. Carpenter's consent, that we do something to help his fellow workers. And this man's legs were amputated, and I don't want to get too descriptive here, but it was the worst case I ever seen. But I've been in this for a quarter of a century. When he asked to be let to die and he did so within three hours and 40 minutes, and along with the help of some others. And I want to give you a name. It's a Judge in Warren County, Judge Powers, to give source for you to get information. We were able to get his body and pack it properly and get it out of the country to the Third World, that performed the nuclear autopsy, did the analysis, and preserved the results. Those are available, and we're waiting for the right time and the right place, hoping you guys are the right place. If you ain't, we've already gone through all the cutting, shooting, and gunsmoke. And as a result, people like you have taken it to its new level. And if you fulfill your part as, as well as we did ours, we'll get some results. And maybe we can, this won't happen to the next generation. We recognize that it's absolutely necessary to do worker studies. We only want them done completely with the consent and the knowledge and willing participation. We want the results shared with the people it will help. I made myself one note on the back of these things here. It says, "Don't let Oak Ridge Associated Universities escape." This fellow came up here to tell you, and he was sent here to tell you, check with Dr. Carl Lesbaum (phonetic), the University of Cincinnati class of standards. Check with Shirley Frye (phonetic). These people work with Associated Universities and know exactly what are going on as knowing participants. Get them. I'm through. Thank you for your time and your patience. THE CHAIR: Good. Good. Hold on. Even though that's why -- I wasn't trying to rush your testimony off, but I knew the clock was running out and we wanted to ask you a couple of questions. We'll just have to try to ask them real quickly. Let me make sure that I completely understand. This is a new area for, for me to hear about. First of all, just for folks to say, Dan Guttman, who is, what's his title? The Executive Director of the Advisory Commission, it's very comforting for me to know that he's connected with you. And so that means that the Committee will certainly have a, an easy opportunity to get the information from you. You're one person we don't have to work on getting to speak with the staff that's here. If Dan is involved with you, that's great. MR. BRANHAM: That's true. In addition, I meant what I said. When he asked, you had instant credibility. THE CHAIR: That's great. But I don't think we, the three of us, are familiar with this particular activity. What, what, so what you're saying to us is that even today there are people associated with the company or with the Department of Energy, which is the three people you mentioned, -- MR. BRANHAM: Those three people have since, Dr. Quicken has died, Mike Bowback and Bob Heatherton have retired. The program is still in tact and as we talk. THE CHAIR: And so the program is where there are people who are doing a, desire to do studies on nuclear workers on, when they die, to get at those bodies to be able to conduct studies prior to being buried or, or, or cremated, and that the concern is that, that you do not feel, and the members of the union do not feel that appropriate consent and consultation with family for approval is being done prior to, to the, the, the researchers getting access to those bodies? MR. BRANHAM: It isn't being done. I oftentimes, along with other union officials, have to guard the bodies to make sure they're put into proper hands. THE CHAIR: And in fact you're saying you have personal experience with at least one case recently when, where you had to guard the body and then actually have the body taken out of the country to protect the interests of that person and that family? MR. BRANHAM: It's for multiple reasons, but Carpenter knew what his source of, of death was and he wanted to try to, to help people so nobody else would ever have to go, go through what he was doing. DR. STEVENSON: Can you at this time reveal at all the nature of his illness? You mentioned his limbs were amputated and some of it was very, very raw. MR. BRANHAM: He was one of the most ill persons that, anyone with lesser strength could never survive what he underwent. The amputations were minor compared to the necessity to split his insides and five intravenous feeds from the shoulders down. And he looked like a butchered cow. The man tolerated more than any man ever, ever. DR. STEVENSON: But was it an underlying malignancy? MR. BRANHAM: All internal organs were diseased beyond repair: stomach, liver, kidneys, lungs. DR. STEVENSON: And another, I know you said it was the DOE who approached the Union at one point offering $500, or a certain amount of money for permission to perform autopsies. So they sort of at one point tried to approach in an open way; is that right? But when it didn't work, or concurrent with this they were conducting their own sort of program? I was just confused about the different avenues that they were trying to pursue. MR. BRANHAM: It's been a covert activity from Day 1. They never proved anything with any degree of ethics. Buying of the bodies was merely to satisfy the grant money. You had to have a number in order to certify your study for a peer review, and they weren't getting enough bodies timely, prior to, to being put in the ground. Now, in this case you don't understand. If you do, forgive me. A nuclear autopsy versus an autopsy on someone who has expired is totally different, mainly because thorium, plutonium are bone seekers. In order to verify their existence in the bone you have to do core drilling, bone drilling. You can't do that on a living person, so they must have these bodies. THE CHAIR: Lois. MS. NORRIS: Once again a very brief question. Do I understand you have documentation that you have turned over to Dan or to, to the staff members, or that you are withholding until you determine if, you know, it's appropriate that we receive the documentation? MR. BRANHAM: I've shared it with Senator Glenn and Markey and his staff, and Dingell, who's aware of all this stuff. And I've testified in Congress a few times. I'm old and I'm tired, and I want you guys to pick the ball up and run with it. If I can help you I will. I've got documents. I've got them hid, they're just too unique, to be made available if something happens to me. In today's life, in the '90s, that may be hard for you to understand, but going back two decades it was a reality. You're going to be talking to people later on that can, can tell you that one hell of a life. These people have been easy on us, but don't lighten up because -- No slack. Go for, for the jugular. DR. STEVENSON: Is this, do you know where all of this is stockpiled, this biological information? MR. BRANHAM: Ronnie Kathrin, the President, and I can take you to Hanford where you can find body parts and diseased parts, or gangs, and what have you. THE CHAIR: I know in another couple of weeks we'll be up in Spokane, and so if you can alert folks that we're coming so they'll be there to test-, to talk to me. MR. BRANHAM: As people call me I'll give you the name and number of those people. THE CHAIR: And we're going to hear from others later, -- Is that right? -- who also have the -- MR. BRANHAM: I don't think so. They have another agenda. But J. C. Jefcee (phonetic) has -- THE CHAIR: We do need to move on if, but one other thing I guess I just don't understand about, this is more of a question of why. It would seem to me, this may be naive on my part, that, that the, that, that the workers would want to, that would have an interest in, in making sure that as much as possible were known about their, you know, exposures and the appropriate scientific risks, and so forth, to protect the best interests of the employees in the industry. And it would seem that it would be, it would make sense for those in the industry to, to know as much and to get at that appropriately and fairly. What's hard to understand is why now in 1994 there would be this degree of, of difference and anger, though. And with, with everyone, seems like the interest of all would be to do it right, to do it good, to, to do everything good. I mean, why this late in history would there be this much tension on an issue like this? MR. BRANHAM: Well, with all due respect, with this particular presidential group, we have had other charades for the past two decades. None of it have done a hill of beans, you know. When you come across this Glenn Markey response there's some political positive effort; still no results. The workers do not oppose. In fact, we recognize it's essential that you have worker studies. But you must do it legally, ethically, morally, and with the worker's consent and willing participation. And we will participate. THE CHAIR: So, at no time -- and this, I promise this will be the last question, but at no time then are you saying that the desires of the studies, the sponsors of the studies have not sat with members of the industry and gotten your advice and counsel on how to create the mechanisms, the principles, the practices of doing this study in a way that would be acceptable to you and further the aims of the scientists? They've never sat with you and talked with you? MR. BRANHAM: Sir, they extend the existence of this even as we've talked now. You heard the man from the, the Oak Ridge University give a politically motivated justification for what they did. These people in '46, in this Nuremberg trial tried Jeffrey Lawrence and sentenced him to hang just as he did eleven of those people. THE CHAIR: Thank you for your time, and thank you for your patience. MR. BRANHAM: Thank you for the opportunities. Good luck. THE CHAIR: Let me welcome Mrs. Dorothy Swenty and also Mrs. Pat Wheeler. And I hope I pronounced Ms. Swenty's name correctly. I bet I got it. Thank you for your patience. Sorry. I know we need to move along, but that was new information that I needed to understand. MS. WHEELER: Thank you, and good afternoon. I am here. THE CHAIR: Are -- MS. WHEELER: Pardon me? THE CHAIR: You're which? MS. SWENTY: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Dorothy Swenty. THE CHAIR: Oh, Ms. Swenty. PRESENTATION BY DOROTHY SWENTY: MS. SWENTY: Swenty. I'm here on behalf of my brother, George O'Neill, who was an atomic veteran. He was part of Operation Upshot/Knothole. George passed away suddenly in May of this year. He was very passionate in his endeavor to find answers to things he didn't have answer to concerning radiation testing. Unfortunately, I know nothing about it. I'm not going to be able to answer any questions you might have. The only thing I'd like to do is read a poem that my brother, George, wrote, shortly before he died, actually about two and a-half months before he died, concerning this radiation testing that he was a part of, okay? THE CHAIR: Please. Please. MS. SWENTY: In memory of the men of the Second Marine Corps Provisional Atomic Exercise Brigrade and the April eighteenth, 1953, Saturday morning on the radioactive sands of Yucca Flat Atomic Test Area Two: "so there we were in the flat desert on this cool clear night while stars peered down at this huddled mass of virile young warriors gaining strength from each other in this time of stress we did not stray from the elongated grave-like trenches hewed from dry desert sand come said the earth enter into my sanctuaries i will shelter you from the coming violence of the mankind's nether world tension is showing now on the young faces gathered 'round me so now we wait in this early morn for the sands of time to come together with a point of no return and there there the tower stands arrogant in knowing the power it cradles it came to me then that soon we would be on bended knee heads bowed as if in prayer my blood ran cold as i began to think the unthinkable there on high atop a tower as if some god upon an altar sits the bomb in all its splendor there was this feeling of a pagan rite and so were we to be some sort of sacrifice" February twelfth, 1994, George A. O'Neill. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Oh, wow. That was very special. Let me just say -- I'll give you the appropriate time. -- that we were similarly affected by, by a witness in San Francisco two weeks ago, -- MS. SWENTY: Oh, really? THE CHAIR: -- who was again at Ground Zero of that, and gave us a very powerful first-hand statement about what that experience was like. And so I just want you to know that for us, and we were, that poem is in the Record with us now, -- MS. SWENTY: Good. THE CHAIR: -- that we're particularly open to receiving that poem and, and I just, it's a little small justice that, that he would write that and it would affect people, -- MS. SWENTY: Yes. THE CHAIR: -- people later. It's more than appropriate that you read it. I thank you. PRESENTATION BY PAT WHELLER: MS. WHEELER: I'd just like to say a couple of things. There were, my brother did not ask for much out of life. He wanted the Government to take responsibility for what they had done to the military, to the serviceman; in particular, the ones that were in the atomic testing. He would have liked to have had a (sic) atomic veterans' memorial placed out in the desert in Nevada. And he said, "I won't live long enough to help myself, but if I can, anything I do can help one veteran, then I will not have died in vein." THE CHAIR: Well, again, let me say that this is the second time that we have heard someone call for such a memorial, and, and, and I think obviously, I mean, this is becoming an obsessive drum beat. MS. WHEELER: It has to be. They have to be recognized. THE CHAIR: And obviously I'm understanding it. Maybe this is just another beat of, of the drum. As people hear it more and more, let it resonate. Let me also say to you all that one of the things that's hard to live with is the anxiety of inattention. We can't over promise. As a committee we're not all-powerful. We can't deliver everything to everybody. There are limitations. But at least one thing you can be sure is that this Committee is not going to ignore the, the atomic veteran. It's big, a big part of our work, and at least tonight as you go home let you know that you're making sure. MS. SWENTY: Thank you again. Thank you for hearing us, and thank you for all the work you're doing. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Yes. Mr. Robert Hager, and Mrs. Katherine Hager. Welcome. MR. HAGER: Thank you. PRESENTATION BY KATHERINE HAGER: MRS. HAGER: This is pertaining to my father, Joseph Mitchell, when he was Number 051 there in study in October, 1963. My father was diagnosed with lung cancer in the right lung and was admitted to Cincinnati General Hospital. Surgery was scheduled in November of 1963. Although there is no notations in the scheduled surgery in his medical records, we have, we have a letter which was written by my father to my sister detailing the planned operation. For some unknown reason the surgery was canceled on the day it was scheduled. The surgery was never rescheduled. Instead, my father was given a schedule date to return to the hospital for cobalt treatment. At this point I asked to see the doctors, why the, why the surgery was scheduled. They told me he was too weak for surgery and decided to opt for the cobalt treatments instead. I repeat, my father was not in a weakened state, but was in relatively good health, was still working and living a normal life. Wasn't until after the cobalt treatment started that my father began to go down hill. After 35 days of treatment my father was so weak he had to retire from work and move closer to my family so we could help take care of him. In early 1965 my father was again admitted to Cincinnati General Hospital with severe chest pains. It was at this time that he was subjected to the whole-body radiation, 150 rads. He immediately started a drastically downhill spiral. After much suffering my father died June 14, 1974, 74 days after total-body radiation. Since the total-body radiation had not been performed on cancer patients in Cincinnati General Hospital prior to government funding in 1960, I feel that my father, along with the other cancer patients, were hand picked and used in total-body radiation, not as a treatment for cancer, but, as they'd been told, but as a cover for a study performed by the Department of Defense to determine possible side effects on soldiers in nuclear warfare. It might be noted that at the time my father died two of my brothers were in the U.S. Air Force, one in Viet Nam in the war zone. The Red Cross had to locate him and bring him home for the funeral. Both brothers have since retired from the Air Force. Isn't it ironic that two of my brothers were serving this country in the military while at the same time the United States Government was sponsoring experiments which ended my father's life? And Dr. Saenger stated that the treatment's goal was to relieve pain and improve the well-being. To answer that, my father suffered more pain, which he had to be given morphine for and became bedridden. He ended his last five weeks in a hospital half knowing his family was even the, in the room with him. My father's hospital bill was paid with life insurance policies. If there was no secret about this, why didn't the doctors talk to the family and explain what was going on? I've asked many, many times to talk to a doctor, but not once did I get to see one about the treatment that was never mentioned. My father was the first human bone marrow transplant which did not take. I feel that this and Dr. Saenger's treatment ended my father's well-being, shortened his life, and in addition, put him through terrible and suffering pain. My father and I became very close when he found out about his cancer. Never once did he mention about his treatment being an experiment. He felt the doctors were really going to help him beat this cancer, and that he was going to come home again. I believe my father was in the wrong place at the right time with the right type of cancer. I also believe that he not only became a patient, but a victim for an experiment of Dr. Saenger and the Government of the United States. And I want to thank you for coming to Cincinnati and let us tell stories. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you. PRESENTATION BY ROBERT HAGER: MR. HAGER: First of all, first of all, in dealing with this whole situation, we're dealing with two giants: one, the United States Government; two, Dr. Saenger. Dr. Saenger is noted as a giant in radiation. He gave over 40 lectures pertaining to the effects of total-body radiation in May, yet none were given before 1960 when this whole program started. He has received, received numerous awards and recognition. Saenger Hall at UC was named after him. If he was to go to Nagasaki or Hiroshima, do you think we would see a building named after President Truman? No. That's what radiation did. Destroyed. It did not help. It destroyed. Now, for all these recognitions for his personal goals and gains, we cannot forget that the foundation for all of this, his personal gains and goals, was laid right here in Cincinnati, Cincinnati General Hospital, at the cost of at least eight lives, probably more, much pain and suffering of 88 patients, innocent patients who came there seeking treatment. Treatment was what they were seeking, and they were not for Dr. Saenger's personal gains and goals. He is the one that benefited. They, we are not. Excuse me now, let me, when it's talking about the radiation therapy, Dr. Saenger says this is what it was for, for ease of pain without curing. Calculation is a word of multiple meanings, four other ones: To cloak; to hide; to conceal; to cover up; last, to ease the pain without cure. It did not do this. He chose a very good term to use there. It did not end the pain without curing. Her father, as we're talking about, was on morphine from the time he got the radiation until he died; nothing prior to that. Where did the easing of the pain come from? It did do the cloaking, the hiding, the concealing and the coverup. It did do that, because we knew nothing of this until this year. So that's my interpretation of that word, is what it means to me. Now, when Dr. Saenger applied to DOD for the funding for this project he listed it was for a basic test, basic test. How basic is basic? Death? No, I think not. Basic, the fundamental, the basic, the start. In this basic test that he implied he was going to find a simple urine test to be able to measure the amount of radiation a person had come in contact with on the job, nuclear explosions, battlefield. A basic test. He never did achieve this goal. He never did. Yet he kept applying to the Government yearly what he had found out, asking for more money, more money. The Government gave him more money. In these eight or nine, ten, I think there were ten altogether, applications, what was he asking for? Why more money? He demanded this. What was he continuing to do? What was his next goal for the Government? Obviously it was for the Government. They'd given him the money for what? He abandoned the acid plan. It didn't work. He abandoned that but wanted to go further. He had mentioned that 600 rads were, is the lethal dose. Was this his goal? To what extremes? He didn't know. He knew 150 rad damaged the bone marrow. He knew that. Was he still going to go to this, the 600, illegal? Death, immediate goal? I mean, was this his goal? Obviously it was. He commenced at 150 rad, which my father-in-law had. It damaged, destroyed his bone marrow. He was the first one in this testing to receive the bone marrow transfusion. It did not work. There were two patients done in May of 1965 that it did not take. This is not my stuff. This is Dr. Saenger speaking. It's right in here. This is his book. Dates everything. It's his chart. He marked 051. So when this did not work they found problems, and particularly in my father-in-law's because he developed things that the other patients didn't, didn't. In his medical records it tells what problems they found, how they had to go about solving them. It tells about using inferior equipment in this, in his step-by-step procedure. This did not work, so they abandoned the bone marrow infusions because of this problem. They had to get over that hump some way. Now, they abandoned this in '65, May of '65. They've done the total-body radiation. The rads dropped from 1965 to March of 1967. That is when the next person got the bone marrow infusion. The rads dropped. They, none of them, there was three out of 13 that got 150 rads or more total-body radiation. There was some got upper, lower. But total-body dropped. Three out of 13 got it. Now, in 1968 they started bone marrow infusions again. The rads increased again. Did he think we solved this problem? No, he didn't, because there was four or five more died right in a row. In this book, bone marrow did not take. Bone marrow did not take. Then they started aspirating, getting the total-body radiation, infusions the same day. Then they started to take. Then they started to take. Then his rads were increased more and more. At a time he thought they'd got the problem solved, out of 13 people that received bone marrow infusion, eight of them died. And I assume that this is the eight people that he is talking about died in this thing, in his statement, because he says, "At least ten percent of them died in the treatment." This is his words. They're right here. Now, another thing I'd like to -- and this hematology report or chart, for an example, he's talking about the, the permission slips and that. I notice in this hematology report everything is listed, Day 1, Day 2, after Rx, so on and so forth. At Day 60 his hematology stopped. Half a sheet left. Plenty of room for the other 14 days. Seventy-four days later, but on Day 60 that part of the report stopped. Was this his goal, just to keep some alive for 60 days, keep a chart on them for 60 days and whatever happened, happened? Why did it stop with two more weeks to go? Why did it stop? There was nothing wrong with my father-in-law's wife. He never notified anybody. That was it. It stopped at Day 60. One of these consent forms that he signed -- talk about consent forms, it's a consent form for, for aspiration and infusion of the bone marrow if needed, signed 29 days after they did the aspiration; 29 days. The reason for that? Another coverup. This was May the first, 1965, when the consent forms started. He wanted my father-in-law's name on that consent form. This is the only reason I can see why, 29 days after the procedure was done, it was signed. And I got, I feel like the Government's Saenger, I feel mostly it was done for Dr. Saenger's personal goals and for information for the Government so that, or the Government would not have kept funding him nine more times after he abandoned the acid test, which we know nothing about what Dr. Saenger promised them in the other nine tests. THE CHAIR: Well, we're out of time, but if you'll tell me one quick question, at least for me: You, you're pretty specific. First of all, thank you for your testimony. You were very clear, very, very, you know, we understand. We cannot fail to understand what you're saying to us. You're very clear about the, about the making, about making the statement of the purpose of the radiation was for palliation in your father's case. Are you getting that from your sense of reading the purposes in history of, of, of the, of, of Dr. Saenger's work, or are you getting that from, in your father's specific case he was told, or you as family was told that, in fact, what was occurring here was to relieve pain? MR. HAGER: The, we're getting from, from nobody about Dr. Saenger, his appearances, his statements, his interviews with the news media when he is interviewed. This is all along not only my father-in-law. He's claiming this for the whole testing. As far as one-on-one, we've never been told anything about palliation therapy, the research, the total quad radiation. We have radiation. We've been told nothing. So that term is what we're using as what he uses to cover the whole group; not just us, the whole group. This is the whole background, to ease the pain without curing. And this is what I'd like to see. One more minute. I'd like you to see if you've got these medical charts. I think you say you've got them, most of them. Compare them. See how many took morphine after the radiation. See how many they took prior. I think my father-in-law lived 74 days. I think he had it 60. He never had even a flu shot. How can that be? MRS. HAGER: The only kind of medicine Dad was taking was when he came home from the hospital with this cancer. He was taking a cough medicine because he coughed real bad, and he was spitting up phlegm. And he saved that, and a nurse came every day to take his blood test, and she would collect that and take it back to the hospital, never explained why. Just said it had to be done; they wanted to keep a close check on his blood. That's the only medicine my father took. He had no pain medicine, no pills, nothing. Just a big pink bottle of some kind of cough medicine. And he just got down so bad that we watched him. We took care of him. After he had the 150 rads his chest was burned so bad that my mother and I would rub Vaseline on him and he couldn't even stand bedclothes on him, he was burned so bad. THE CHAIR: What was the diagnosis again? MRS. HAGER: Lung cancer. THE CHAIR: Right. And when the diagnosis was made, you may have said something. I just was thinking about, you know, some other patients and their testimony, and I didn't focus on it. Did you talk about the, the time between diagnosis and the time the treatment began, do you have a sense of how long that was? MRS. HAGER: He was diagnosed in '63, and they were supposed to have surgery on him in November of '63, which they did not do. Then he got sick again in '65 with chest pains. He went back to the hospital. Then they kept him like five to six weeks. They gave him the radiation. THE CHAIR: The radiation began in '65? MRS. HAGER: Right. THE CHAIR: He diagnosed in '63, radiation in '65? MRS. HAGER: Right. THE CHAIR: At the time of the radiation, when he got sick again, as you said, when he got sick and they started radiation, was he, what was, what, what, when you say he got sick again, describe a little bit just what it was like when he got sick again. MRS. HAGER: Okay. The, see, he was going back for cobalt treatments and going back to home. And after cobalt treatments he couldn't work. He just went down hill and weakened him to a state he couldn't do his job any more. I mean, he was able to go for walks and he was eating and, you know, he was just, just living. And then he just developed chest pains and he told my mother that he couldn't breathe and he thought he should go to a hospital. So we called an ambulance and they took him to the hospital. They kept him there five or six weeks, and he was, from what we understand, he said he was undergoing tests. You never seen a doctor. I was there every day. I went every day to see my dad. I went during the day and in the evenings to see him to try to find somebody that would tell me what was going on. Nobody would talk to you. You never could see a doctor. They were never around. All I could get was the word from my father what was going on. DR. STEVENSON: I'm sorry. Just one question to clarify things for me. He had cobalt-60 treatments prior to the radiation? MR. HAGER: He received cobalt-60 and 400, that was completed in 35 days. DR. STEVENSON: And do you have, a date on, on that? MR. HAGER: This was October of '63. DR. STEVENSON: And did you have family discussions with doctors at that point about radiation treatments? MRS. HAGER: Nothing. No, it was never discussed. The only thing I knew was going on with my dad is, my dad told me himself, because I was there every day and he told me everything they were doing to him. DR. STEVENSON: Do you get a sense that he had any discussions with doctors about those original cobalt treatments? Were they done as an outpatient? Did he drive him in and out? MRS. HAGER: Yeah. DR. STEVENSON: Did you get an understanding he had a discussion with doctors and understood what the cobalt treatments were meant to achieve? MR. HAGER: All he knew was for his cancer. He said was going help him. When we was told he was going to get the total-body radiation we asked him why. We were young, 27, 28 years old. This was all new in terms. He told us in his own words, "It's radiation on my whole body to cure my whole body of cancer," and -- MRS. HAGER: That's what he thought. MR. HAGER: I guess this was the time to gather total-body, whole-body. This is what he said, "to rid," "to rid," that is the word he used, " ... to rid my whole body of cancer." This was it. This was all we knew or heard about. THE CHAIR: The, the, the cobalt treatments in '63, do you get a sense at all, was it the same team of physicians that were managing your father's case with the cobalt intervention of '63 and then the total-body in '65? MR. HAGER: We don't know, because he never talked to any of them. MRS. HAGER: Never got to talk to them. MR. HAGER: Never talked to any of them, just one time. MRS. HAGER: I got to talk to one doctor one time. I called the hospital and I told them I'd like to see a doctor to find out for my dad, because I needed to know for my mother, and what we would have to do with her. She would be left by herself. THE CHAIR: One of the things, I guess we have not done a good enough job as we talk to families, and I need to focus on this for just one minute. When, when a patient is admitted to a hospital, in most hospitals they are admitted under the care of a treating physician, -- MR. HAGER: Yeah. THE CHAIR: -- either the family's long-term physician or a physician on staff at that hospital that's assigned to them. And that physician makes rounds on that patient. That physician spends time with that family. That physician is available for questioning morning and evening. MRS. HAGER: We've never seen one. THE CHAIR: And you're saying to me that over all of these years -- MRS. HAGER: Never seen one. Never got to talk to one. The day my father was to be operated on and they canceled it, I sat there the whole day, and the nurse come in. I have an admission slip that they gave me at the hospital to go to pre-op to sit with my dad until he went to surgery. The nurse come (sic) to me and said, "They canceled surgery. They're not going to operate." And I said, "Why? Why are they doing --" "You'll have to speak to a doctor." And I said, "You'll have, when can I see one?" And she says, "Just sit. He'll be in. He'll be in." I never did. I set (sic) there the whole day. He never did come in. THE CHAIR: So did you have, I'll not, this is incredible. I mean, the whole, everything is, of course. MRS. HAGER: It's ridiculous. THE CHAIR: But let me understand again on something that's just very fundamental. And I don't mean to be new to the prejudices of this. I'm just trying to understand this very basically. The, did your family have a family physician? MRS. HAGER: Yes. Well, my mom and dad did. They went to a doctor out in Kenwood, and that, they worked at a church and they helped in the lunchroom with the, handling the food so they'd have to have an X-ray taken every year. So they had an X-ray taken, both of them did, and you had to sign a card. And if anything's wrong, they notify you. You're okay. They called my father and told my father to make a visit to his doctor; they would send a letter to his doctor explaining why. All right. That doctor, in the meantime, the hospital where he worked at furnished no medical insurance, so the doctor he was going to said, "I know these, well, doctors in, over there at General Hospital. They'll take very good care of you. I'm going to send you over there. "I have already notified them, you know, that you're coming. I've already made an appointment for you." And my dad went, and that's how he got caught up in all this. THE CHAIR: So then, and then at that point, from that point on when the, when you're, because of not having insurance, not having a whole lot of money -- MRS. HAGER: Correct. THE CHAIR: -- to go to the public hospital, -- MRS. HAGER: Right. To go to the clinic. THE CHAIR: -- you go to, to the clinic? MRS. HAGER: Right. THE CHAIR: The diagnosis is made in that clinic? MRS. HAGER: Right. THE CHAIR: A physician made that diagnosis? MRS. HAGER: One of them doctors did, yes. THE CHAIR: And then said that, and a series of treatments occur, but not coordinated, as far as you know, by one person who is related to you or the family? MRS. HAGER: Nobody told us nothing except one doctor. I, I would call the hospital to see how I could get in touch with a doctor to find out what was going on with my dad, because when I say, when I would go over there I could never see one. So I made one appointment. All he told me was that my dad had cancer, and we're going to go ahead and go with treatments, and we're not going to do any surgery. This was after he was in the hospital and they canceled his surgery, that he went to the clinic. I had to go, well, I went with him every day anyway, because he couldn't drive. We went on the bus together. And they told me to come to the clinic and make sure that I want him at the desk; that one of the doctors is to speak with me about my father. And I did, and one of them come out and talked with me and said, "Well, he's got lung cancer and possibly a year to live, and we, we decided not to operate. We're, we're going to go with these cobalt treatments." THE CHAIR: And then when you would bring him, and I know that I'm way over time here, but I, this is just, we've not asked these questions of others and, I mean, we need ask them now. When, when you would bring him, then you brought him back and forth to the hospital on all of those cases? MRS. HAGER: On the bus. THE CHAIR: You rode the bus? MRS. HAGER: Yes, we did. THE CHAIR: And you got to the hospital, and so he would go into the room, put a gown -- MRS. HAGER: He'd go, they would make me sit in, out in the hall and they would -- THE CHAIR: And then people are pacing back and forth in the hallway? MRS. HAGER: Correct. THE CHAIR: Then you're sitting there. Then you say you wanted to see a doctor at some point, I mean, because somebody's going in the room to see your doctor. You don't see the people going in there? MRS. HAGER: No. THE CHAIR: These are not the same people? MRS. HAGER: When he went for his cobalt treatments I'd ask the nurse that would take him away from me, and I'd say, "Is there any way I can talk to a doctor while we're down here?" And she'd say, "Oh, honey, they're so busy." THE CHAIR: I've got it. MR. HAGER: And actually I might clarify a little bit about this. Now the times she was talking about taking him to the hospital, that was just for his treatment. Now, the follow-up was done at the hospital. It was done at home, also. When he was home a short period of time, nurses would come from the hospital, take a urine test, take a blood test, report back on their findings, you know, his blood count and everything. But as far as direct contact, contact with a doctor, no, because we would go in, they would give him his cobalt treatment, and we would leave. And the only time they would have access was during his confinements, and that's when we tried to talk to someone and they would not. MRS. HAGER: They just refused. THE CHAIR: Just since, I promise, Mr. Cummins and Mr. and Mrs. Blaz, and Jackie Kittrell, that I appreciate your patience. Don't get too irritated with me. Just last, last thing. Just, now when he was in the hospital, very sick man, -- MRS. HAGER: Uh-huh. THE CHAIR: -- you are obviously a dedicated daughter. I mean, you are there. You are there as much as you can possibly be there over this time. Physicians normally will come around early in the morning and late at night to make rounds, but they still come around at times, and in, in, in. And after you spend time in a hospital you eventually, it seems, will run into docs coming in and out and doing whatever they do, coming by the bedside, saying something, checking something. Did you have the experience, because you were there, obviously there, that you again ever encountered some, the treating physicians, somebody who was responsible for this case? MRS. HAGER: No. No, he was in a ward. (To Mr. Hager): What was it like? About eight or ten people in a ward. MR. HAGER: I'd like to answer that, because she's getting upset. I think I have a better answer for you. THE CHAIR: Well, no, I'm sorry. MR. HAGER: We confronted nurses, we confronted physicians when they would come around and make their little checks. "I'm sorry. You'll have to talk to the doctor." Okay? "I'm sorry, you'll have to talk to the doctor." Okay? This is from the nurse; this is from physicians. This is from everybody we've come in contact. We've tried to come in contact. Her phone number's on one page of his medical records of who to call. We never received a call. But now, after this was all over and my father-in-law had died, then we found out that these physicians, these nurses, -- Dr. Saenger's book, it's in here. -- were told not to notify the people; not to tell the patients or their relation what was going on, in a round-about way. THE CHAIR: Okay, let me thank you for your patience on these. And these were a lot of detailed questions. I hate to make you go through it again. MRS. HAGER: That's okay, because I feel you really should. MR. HAGER: Thank you. We're sorry we took so much time. THE CHAIR: No. It, it's my fault. I'm the one that's guilty. They should be angry with me. Mr. William Cummins, would you come forward? Sir, thank you for joining us. PRESENTATION BY WILLIAM CUMMINS: MR. CUMMINS: Yes, sir. I'm William Cummins. I, I've asked to come down here today and appear today as I'm an atomic veteran, as you've heard from some other people before me. I just sat back there today and listened to other people and their, their, their, what they have to say. It's extremely interesting to me in relating that to my own experience in these past number of years. I'd also like to add, for sure add that it, it's been such a tremendous, frustrating experience dealing with my situation that it is really, really refreshing to hear that President Clinton appointed your committee to study these issues, and your Secretary O'Leary's openness and forthrightness in her dealings; and, and that President Clinton appointed a disabled veteran to head the Veteran's bureau. We've had a bad experience, just speaking for my group, the Atomic Veterans, in dealings with the Government for many, many years. I was, I was a member of the Marine Corps, 1962, and my outfit, it was sent to the, the South Pacific atomic testing range, Downston (phonetic) Island. And they were conducting atmospheric tests. And 1962 was the last test they did. The previous, the following summer they set up to sign a nuclear test-ban treaty. I was in the last set of tests, called "Dominic Two." They were atmospheric tests, and I was present during eight detonations, and I was with a marine guard detachment aboard an aircraft carrier as support company. They detonated these over the top of us off, from rockets, the warheads and rockets. We wore a dosimeter around our necks that were read twice a week. We would go to a medical facility aboard the aircraft carrier and take them the dosimeter, and go back into another room. And I at the time got the feeling of secretiveness from them, and I asked them a number of times -- I was, this went on for three months, and I asked them a number of times, "What is, what are you reading from my dosimeter?" And they said, "It's classified. We can't tell you." So I followed with the corpsman as he went back into this other room, and a I went with him he was putting this dosimeter into a machine. And he saw me coming into the room and he immediately took the dosimeter out of the machine and he said, "Get out of here. You have to leave." And I said, "No, I want to find out what you are doing." He said, "Leave." I said, "No. I want to see what you're doing." He said, "Leave." I said, "It's my dosimeter." He said, "No, it's the Government's." I said, he said he was going to call the ship's police and have me, have me arrested unless I didn't leave. And what I'm saying is, I knew there was something very secretive about that at that time. Anyway, two years later I, I got very sick and developed what turned out to be multiple myeloma, which is bone marrow cancer, and that particular type of cancer is caused primarily from overexposure to X-ray radiation. It's at, at this time, it's in 1990, it had already been recognized, brought through the courts by the Veteran's associations, ours and NAAV, that one certain type of cancer were recognized, caused. Okay, it had already been established at the time. I've occurred with this, so I applied for government medical benefits and have received them since 1991. I also want to tell you, as a person who's gone through this experience, and then finding out that it was what I had thought two years earlier, that there's something wrong with all of this, ultimately where I have proved to be, to cause me such an awesome amount of pain in, in my life. Words can't put it, words can't be brought forth to tell you the emotional rage that I have gone through and continue to go through at my government; not to mention that this was done to us back at that time, but the treatment we've received since in refusing to acknowledge that anything was done to cause us any kind of problem. I, I am one of the few people in the United States who has gotten benefits from the, from the, the Veterans Administration. There's something like 1,400, of, of which I'm one. And there's over 20,000 claims filed. I'm a very fortunate person to have gotten it. I have, in my membership of National Association of Atomic Veterans, I've been a state commander for the State of Kentucky and I've met veterans across the state at veterans' gatherings. And the predominant story you hear, there are many, many stories, the same story of people who have suffered through their veterans' illness, long, protracted illness in which the Government offered no help whatsoever; long, repeatedly as the person, just a gradual shut-down of the body's systems and functions until they died and their family lost everything. There's a lot of stories, the same ones you hear. THE CHAIR: Would you mind if we asked a couple of questions? MR. CUMMINS: Sure. THE CHAIR: Just give me a sense, first. It's extremely valuable to have you here because you, I mean, you, you, you've already been, you, like you say, you're one of the few that have already become compensated, and you're here with others. That's a very big job. When you were one of those folks at the eight detonations, what was told to you? I mean, what can you specifically remember as to why you were told you were going to be there, or what purpose it was you were there? And what explanation were you given to why you were there? MR. CUMMINS: When we were a support company for the, for the personnel who were involved in the, in the actual staging of the tests. THE CHAIR: How, do you have any sense of how close you were required to be because you were in a support role? MR. CUMMINS: I've obtained the Government's statistics on, on the testing that I was involved in, and they state that the atmospheric detonation point was six, six miles to, to 15 miles in, above us in the atmosphere. I particularly remember it being not far overhead, and I, and I dispute the fact that it was 15 miles. THE CHAIR: So, so that your role was to, you were, you were at those sites as part of your work diet. You were working in support of people that were doing the test? MR. CUMMINS: Yes, sir. THE CHAIR: And there were some steps that you may have been in some harm's way, because they put this device around your neck to read this radiation. So they were, in some places, aware that you may be in some harm's way because they gave you this device. Did they talk to you about what harm or what danger you may be in? Did any discussion occur as to prepare you as to what some of the consequences of your occupation may have been? MR. CUMMINS: At no time was anything ever mentioned as to, if any one of us asked about if there might be consequences, the answer was, no, there were no problems. MS. NORRIS: And you were given no protective clothing, no guidance as to how to avoid problems then, if you were told there were no problems to avoid; right? MR. CUMMINS: They counted down to the detonation point, seconds-wise, and when, we were told that at that time, detonation minus ten, ten seconds before, to look to the deck of the ship and cover our eyes, shut your eyes, cover them with your forearm, your hand and then your forearm, and to, that's all we were told to do. DR. STEVENSON: But you weren't told to go under deck or anything like that? MS. NORRIS: Uncovered hand and arms or things? MR. CUMMINS: That's right. No, you were on the flight deck. DR. STEVENSON: Did you get the sense that more people were on the flight deck than with a, what would normally be? Were people up on the deck assembled, or were you just going back for business and at the time of detonation you were told to cover your eyes? MR. CUMMINS: Practically everybody was there. These were always done in the middle of the night, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 o'clock in the morning. And the awesome, unbelievable -- people, I remember of the nuclear detonation was something, that's what gave me the sense that something would come to this, that we were so close to it. The -- DR. STEVENSON: So were, if you -- sorry. Were you actually taken out and told to come on deck? MR. CUMMINS: Anybody who was on duty was, was, had to be there. People who were off duty didn't have to be there, no. DR. STEVENSON: Okay. MS. NORRIS: I have one more combination of comment and question. One of the things which the Committee has to have to do as a result of the, or at the San Francisco meeting, was to see if they could find a common thread running through the denial of veterans' claims. And you're telling me you're one of the few who has actually been given compensation as a result of your illness; that many, many have been denied. And so we're trying to see if we can find if there is a common thread, a reason which, a consistent reason for denial, why so many people are failing to be compensated. But I'm wondering, you personally have a feel from your observation as to why the veterans' complaints are being consistently denied? MR. CUMMINS: No, ma'am, I don't have any evidence of which can be based on. I, I have heard a number of times that the natural incidence of cancer in the general population is such-and-such a percent and I very much believe that that's what the Department of Defense wants to show; is that, "Look, we've got no more incidence of cancer in this group of veterans than in the general population." And I believe that's the whole thing. THE CHAIR: Let me take you back on the question that Dr. Stevenson asked you. You were involved in eight detonations that you recall? MR. CUMMINS: Yes. THE CHAIR: They were at night? MR. CUMMINS: Yes. THE CHAIR: Were you on duty on the deck for all eight? MR. CUMMINS: No. Probably half, or maybe three of those. The others I voluntarily, we went up there on flight deck. THE CHAIR: That's, let me understand that better. Wait a minute. Now, you're saying that you're there, now the ship is there to be support personnel. You are working. If you happen to be working on deck at the time of the detonation and you have work to do, they asked you to suspend your work, cover your eyes until the detonation is over, then you go back to work? MR. CUMMINS: Yes. THE CHAIR: If you're not on duty you're below deck doing whatever you do off duty. Now, you're saying that even on those times when you were off duty you were, you were brought up on deck? MR. CUMMINS: Weren't brought. We went there. THE CHAIR: Oh, you went there on your own? MR. CUMMINS: Of our own volition. THE CHAIR: Just as for what was happening, something that was interesting? MR. CUMMINS: The idea of seeing a nuclear explosion. After you see one, you don't need to see another. There isn't much there. THE CHAIR: But you're out in the middle of no-where and there's not that much to do. MR. CUMMINS: No. There wasn't much to do. THE CHAIR: Let me ask you then, when you have your dosimeter readings, did you, and clearly you're saying they didn't want you to see the actual results. MR. CUMMINS: They told me they were going to have me arrested. THE CHAIR: Now, whether you went to the vet, or whether you went to the medics, did anybody ever come to you and say what your readings showed? MR. CUMMINS: Never. THE CHAIR: So the assumption, the assumption might be, by some people, is if, if, if they're reading your, your measurements to see what the, the measurement is, and if it is not over a certain limit that they have determined as to be of danger, perhaps there's no need to notify you, and therefore you just, you just go on? MR. CUMMINS: Yes, sir. THE CHAIR: Have you pulled the, have you gotten your records subsequently to this, and do you happen to know now what your dosimeter readings did show? MR. CUMMINS: Yes, sir. I, along with a lot of other veterans, through a long series of paperwork requests, you can obtain your reconstructed, reconstructed. A lot of our records were destroyed in what they call "an unfortunate fire" at the records deposit in St. Louis, but they'll send a reconstructed record, of which it reads zeros all the way across the page. THE CHAIR: I see. MR. CUMMINS: I would also like to add, I, I make numerous trips to the VA hospital here in Cincinnati, and during those trips, about two years they give, upon entering the hospital you get a route sheet. And, and, and, and I'd been looking at that one day about two years ago and I noticed on there it said, "Diagnosis," and it said "Hyperthyroidism." So I questioned the doctor, "What is this?" And says, "That's your medical diagnosis." And I said, "I have multiple myeloma." So anyway, I requested officially through the hospital to correctly list my diagnosis. And they said, "Okay, we'll do that." So anyway, they came back a couple of months later and they, they changed my listing to another. I've forgotten what that one was now, but it was totally unrelated again. So I requested again to have my, my, they, first of all, they said, "That's a general listing, 'hyperthyroidism.' That's a general listing. It really don't reflect much." And I said, "Well, I want my medical condition reflected correctly so you can treat me correctly." Then they changed it to this other that had no bearing. So then they changed it, "leukemia." And I told them again, "I don't have leukemia." So I requested through the Regional Center in Cleveland, would they please have my records corrected? And they changed it to "blood condition." And I, again I've asked them, "I don't, in a very broad, huge, general sense I have a blood condition, but it's much more serious and, and specific than that: multi-type myeloma. It's bone marrow cancer. Would you please list that correctly?" And they came back and said that they don't have the records, the codes to list that in my, in their computer system; that they had to list it as "blood condition." THE CHAIR: Okay. MR. CUMMINS: Now, my point is: Does that make any sense? So I asked them, said, "Would you put that in writing for me?" And they did. And I've got the records right here to verify all that, that, that I'm saying. And they said that they did it here on these pages. And one of my main points of coming to your committee here today is that if you or any other, other asks the VA or the Department of Defense for a readout of people in my classification, you're not going to get it. THE CHAIR: That's good. DR. STEVENSON: That clears up that. MR. CUMMINS: You won't get me on your list, or anybody else that's misidentified. So you aren't going to get a correct list of people. And this reflects just exactly what they want it to reflect. THE CHAIR: You've opened up an awful lot. DR. STEVENSON: One other question is, if you're obviously in a rare group of people that have been, have had their diagnoses accepted, the once that occurred, have you felt that your care has been adequate and, and good for your multiple myeloma? Have you been treated through the VA system? MR. CUMMINS: No, ma'am. I have a private physician. You can elect with their treatment or the, a different physician, and I have a private physician that I've stayed with. I was just at the VA hospital and asked them, anyway. They again told me if I'm not treated by them they're not going to supply -- my medicine is very, very costly on an ongoing basis. They asked me again, would I turn my care over to them? And I told them, "No," because I'm being treated by a private physician who I trust, and I don't trust them. They won't list, list my condition correctly. DR. STEVENSON: Is the VA paying for your -- MR. CUMMINS: No. DR. STEVENSON: So you're receiving some sort of compensation, but not medical? MR. CUMMINS: No, ma'am. THE CHAIR: If, and would you, staff, please, please contact the staff, because you're somebody we need to be able to talk with further. MR. CUMMINS: One other thing, sir. The Justice Department sent, the Justice Department sent me a large packet of material in which there's Congressional law passed in which they overcompensate three classifications: The Indian miners; the military; and people, the downwinders. And there's $50,000 offered to one class of people, $75,000 to the veterans, and $100,000 to the Indian miners. And they offered, they sent me this packet offering $75,000 to relinquish any further claim against or with the Government, and they said, listed an 800 number to call the Justice Department if we had any questions. So I called that 800 number, and I said, "Look, you realize that my type of cancer, one bone marrow is $150,000. And $75,000, if I accepted that, will leave me completely nowhere." And, and the Justice Department attorney said, "Oh, you want it all." And that's a word-for-word quote: "Oh, you want it all, Mr. Cummins," and I gently replaced the phone. THE CHAIR: Thank you, sir. MR. CUMMINS: Thank you. THE CHAIR: Appreciate it very, very much. Very much appreciate it. Mister, Mr. Manuel Blaz and Mrs. Ruth Blaz. And I hope I'm doing some justice for your -- MRS. BLAZ: You, you're pronouncing it correctly. THE CHIAR: Thank you. MR. BLAZ: They used to call us the "Blautzes." THE CHAIR: I'm not about to do that. Thanks a lot for coming. MRRS. BLAZ: Hello. I will be first. PRESENTATION BY RUTH BLAZ: MRS. BLADZ: I am Ruth Blaz. THE CHAIR: Use, I believe if -- MRS. BLAZ: Can you hear me now? It, I have a little bit of laryngitis. THE CHAIR: I tell you what: It, it's even better if you use the other, since you do have laryngitis. MS. BLAZ: I'm Ruth Blaz. I spoke in Washington in September. I'm the mother of two victims, my children John Blaz and Francine Blaz Laster. I used to believe that I lived in the best of all societies. Yes, both my husband and I always believed that, and taught our children to believe in the system and revere government and all it stood for. I guess we could have been called flag-wavers, but we were Americans. Earlier this year we fell pray to the very thing that had commanded our respect for so very long. We had been deceived for so many years by so many people: The human experiments that by records and memories started to make the post-childhood, my children's experiences and the illnesses they experienced make sense. It was electrifying and terrifying. They today find out more. We, I had to begin to live with the horror that had been heaped on these young, healthy bodies that they will have to carry with them to their graves. That is a given. They cannot recover. Today I'm here to find out what this Committee's image will be booked into. Will it cater to publicity, be politically correct, or, and I'm afraid to hope, that to be morally honest? I saw and heard you say that you are working together very well as a team and do not argue and become vocal with each other. I heard in Washington. If I were in your position, I am, and a whole life of devastation spread in the name of experimentation not only to the victims, but to their respective families, well, I would fight like hell before making life and death decisions. I'm referring to years gone by so quickly, so smoothly, they are all suffering human beings. Did you lose sight of that? Some are suffering worse than death, and they are given a niche of how important they were and the, how, and, and did you have the audacity to decide why and what was and is important? Did you lose sight of the fact that they could have been one of your relatives, close to you and loved? It appeared and felt that my children had been cast aside like lepers of old that you read about in your Bibles. Making our most precious commodity, our children, under Committee was the cruelest cut of all. There is no reasonable reason for categories. This true story of our government authorizing legalized, how shall I explain it, time and released authorized murder are the results of Michael Reese (phonetic) holds, and the University of Chicago's being bedfellows in criminal acts against society. We do not have to go to Germany to search out criminals. We have enough of our own post-war criminals by the USA to keep your conscious and courts busy until the end of all the lives of all the people seated in this meeting. I spoke last month of my son's unconscionable treatment at nine months old. He had over 1,000 rads. He's had to endure continual horrors. Not one question was asked of me by this Committee. It made me feel his case and files were going to end up eventually or sooner in the wastebasket. I spoke, I speak harshly, but my family are bruised. We're all bruised people, tired people, disillusioned people. My husband and I get the feeling that the people who would be investigated had to be limited and/or have already been limited to time and money. Tell me: When has the Government ever been limited by these two factors? Also, publicity. In case, in cases following well-documented cases, they certainly would leave a lot of victims fall through many cracks. I compare it with racism. If you are a round peg and the panel is studying square pegs, round pegs, and their true interests, are given less attention and are filed away, or worse, go down the drain. I'm Jewish, and like very many articles in the past few months that say Jewish people are affected differently than any other race by radiation, does that sound like something Hitler might have said? Any experiment has many components -- some square, round, Jewish, yellow, Black, young, old, rich, poor. Is that how my children were chosen? To me there is a parallel between the last statement and the labeling of 1 through 5. Please, Committee, tell me why, how I can explain my children, they're adults but they're still my children, and other people's children who I know of, that, that they are Number 5 in your category of importance? I know you only ask questions, not answer them. If you could make an exception I'll try to explain to my son and daughter why they spent their childhood going clinic to clinic, and doctor to doctor for tests, and having very few remedies for them and myself. It most certainly is a terrible experience I've endured for too many years. Try to envision the thousands of children as your flesh and blood. Would they still be Number 5? I really doubt my country, my government was trying to find and help these victims, my two victims so close to my heart. Should I have known better? Is this the cover-up for Chicago, the home of the Manhattan Project? I will search, and must find out if President Clinton's Committee is the friend or the enemy committee, is the friends or the enemy. Are some victims going to enlist on a sinking ship until they disappear? This is too important. Everyone who is a victim must have equal time and investigation. Don't ignore their questions, or turn your back on them and their suffering, because it is so enormous. I don't have political clout to get publicity to make my family's plight more important. Still, I can help, can't help but believe I'll find a way, along with my husband and our extended family, to make our plight important, just not a number on, number on a numerical chart. As a pebble usually makes a larger ripple than a large rock when thrown into a stream, I will work to find and unearth peoples like me with many small peoples, people like me. Don't desert us. You who are listening are linked to our children being able to finance medical care, help and, help us come before it is too late, and the baby boomers who were the child victims will be gone. Don't let these solutions outlive this generation. Families are victims, and they'll be, feel betrayed by something they held so dear, our government. My husband and I cannot stand to see our children put up and keep up with their pain and anger. We often think of the next world as a better place. Would that be enough publicity to put children there in their rightful place? If numbers must be used, put children first. THE CHAIR: Mr. Blaz, would you just do me one favor? We know you have a something to tell, and I know you want to. Just, we need ask you some questions so we understand the comments that you made. So if you will, just for a moment? DR. STEVENSON: I just want to clarify some things I think may make you feel a little better and quell some of your concerns. I think at the September hearing at the very end is what I think you are referring to. If you will refer to, we went through in terms of trying to focus the public and staff level in terms of where certain people are going to direct our effort, and among the topics was this topic of children and the experiment of radiation on children. And at that meeting that was discussed as a topic we were going to pursue and figure out whether it justified a separate avenue of research. And in fact the Committee did make that decision to make that a separate category. And that has appeared on the Interim Report today. MS. BLAZ: You mean it's no longer Number 5? DR. STEVENSON: I'll address that in a minute. In fact, in our Interim Report it is Number 3. Number 5 has nothing to do with priority. Something has to start and something has to end the list. That doesn't mean that the thing at the first is the most and the things at the last is the least important. They're all important in our mind, but as a result of our deliberations, testimony from people like your husband and yourself, other people who have children or have concern about children, that has become a separate category of our investigation. So you can feel reassured that a great deal of time and effort is going to be put into investigating this. THE CHAIR: And you might want, when I get a copy of our Interim Report, you might make a note in your notes. Turn to Page 16 and you will see it says, "Research Involving or Affecting Children," and it has a whole paragraph about that, and that we have made that a priority. And I would again re-emphasize what Dr. Stevenson has said: that all five, it would be terrible for anyone to think that of those five the, that they're written in some priority. They are not. We made a list. They're all priorities for us, but we were so affected by your testimony and that of others that we have heard you, and so I just wanted to make sure you got that point. You have succeeded in getting our attention. Mr. Blaz, we are more than willing to, to have you address us. If we've already addressed the concern, then, you know, you don't need to do that. MR. BLAZ: No. I have in -- THE CHAIR: If you have a different set of issues, -- MR. BLAZ: I felt very bad. I was, if only one of the Committee asked me one question. No one asked me questions. I have records from Michael A. Reese showing my son had radiation. My memory is the records were given. DR. STEVENSON: I'm sure that Dr. Sandra Thomas on the staff that is in charge and is working solely on questions involving experiments on children has those records, and that is part of her work. MS. BLAZ: I need to get the records for my daughter. THE CHAIR: Right. MS. BLAZ: They suddenly lost those. THE CHAIR: But, Ms. Blaz, please. It is very important, now because you've come here and you are concerned. Well, we really honestly and sincerely addressed and attempted to address your issues. And while you may not be happy with us that we didn't have a chance to ask you questions, it has been taken seriously. Those records are with us. They are being explored. And I just would hate for you to leave today with any sense of frustration, because we really are working very hard to be thoughtful to your issues. MS. BLAZ: It's hard to see your child die from inside out, believe me. PRESENTATION BY MANUEL BLAZ: MR. BLAZ: I am Manuel Blaz. I'm a Chief Warrant Officer. I am retired. What I have to say about this assembly, and the words I'm about to address, I will be editing as I go along, because I also was going to address the priority that Ruth brought to you. When I discovered how radiated my children were it shook me up. Joel is nine months old and Fran, our youngest daughter, was four, and they were treated much, much worse than laboratory animals. When the white mice, guinea pigs, and so forth, are tested with radiation in a lab, there's a difference at what the treatment manner in which they are observed and handled during the pre- and post-radiation, for the laboratory animals are very carefully monitored for any problems that arise, and those are noticed. My two exposed children were given radiation just like these lab animals, but after the huge amounts of radiation, these babies were just sent home to assume their normal lives. There were no special letters of explanation as to what took place, nor even specified. No explanations were presented to either my wife or myself to be warned or even heard. All we were told was both children had been cured of their problems, or whatever the magic ray that they'd been radiated with were supposed to have accomplished. I'm sitting here today nearly 75 years old. I have proudly served my country for over half my life, as has my loving wife, and until the very end of my life we will continue to serve this country. So is, as you see me, as you look at me, but don't forget: For this I've got a pure heart. When I arrived home from overseas on VJ, August, 1945, Ruth and I realized I had some physical blemishes and we sort of approached ourselves under a fashion to live with my disabilities. But when we had our three little babies we did not think we would be targeted by scientists with the same nuclear energy base that we had used to save our children's lives in the war. So Joseph, my son, had abnormally lethal doses of radiation, borne out in the files. When he was only nine months old they created normal conditions in his body that had been penetrated to almost his entire body. Multiple brain tumors so massive that they cracked his skull. His jugular veins had had to be re-routed. He has a total loss of physical dexterity. He can't tie his own shoe laces, nor does he, can he easily button buttons on his shirts without difficulty. He has impaired eyesight and imbalance. He can never play ball or ride a bicycle or tie a fly on a fishing pole. He has major loss of hearing, inability to eat food without gagging and vomiting. His radiation of his lower jaw has affected his teeth. He has total degeneration of his lower jaw, interference with his laryngeal box with replacement with a Teflon flap so he may speak, interruption of speech, and splintered bones throughout his body. Now at this very time that we are sitting here he is being prepared for additional multiple brain tumor surgery causing nerves to become involved. But first he must get ready for surgery on his left leg next week. It's next Thursday he's being operated on. With all these setbacks my son has not been able to realize his professional ambitions, but he has had to settle for a life of depression, pain, and social isolation. That's what's not right. He did not get a purple heart for all this, or any kind of a sign of merit award. My youngest daughter, Francine, was born November 25. Her skeletal body or frame is classified when she was in her teens as being compared to a woman in her 60s. Her immune system, thymus, thyroid, and urinary tract were affected from the time her tonsils were irradiated from the time she was about four years old, and has had a lot of disease with her kidneys. She was not a laboratory animal, and yet they were treated much better. I'm not a (sic) orator. I'm not a politician. I'm nothing but an American parent trying to get things right, wrongs righted. We are discussing the, the need of a fourth, fifth generation of Americans who was being experimentally abused until they have no more avenue but that they be helped to be compensated for what we and what the world needs for care, which has been astronomical. Financial assistance is needed. In closing, it, I'm going to skip over this. There is one other factor, small factor, in my son's far suffering which is his inability, other than to eat and achieve his high achievement, and other than central goals. It was not too long ago that my grandson had the task of cutting down his 14-year-old body. He then had occasional headaches, and upon reading up on his father's conditions and conditions this boy, who was a finalist in the Florida State Science Fair and was reading all the information on radiation he could come by, decided he was also doomed, and killed himself. Our story is not over. Our son has one more son who is profoundly autistic and institutionalized and spastic. Help us. That's all we ask. THE CHAIR: Thank you all very much. And you can be assured that your experiences will be very much a part of what DOE and the staff is working on in children's issues. MR. BLAZ: May I say one thing, sir? When we were in Washington some well-versed gentleman said $50,000 is enough to help. MS. BLAZ: It doesn't even pay for -- MR. BLAZ: It doesn't pay for one week's room at the hospital. THE CHIAR: Thank you, sir. And thank you, ma'am. We're going to probably wind up ignoring the break and go right through. We have a new, let me just get close to give folks a sense of how we want to proceed. Ann Hopkins is going to join us next, and then Jackie Kittrell, and then Dr. Kathleen Platoni. I hope I'm doing that justice. And then Daryl Kimball, and then Geoffrey Sea, or "Say." A SPECTATOR: Sea. THE CHAIR: Sea, Sea. I always get some wrong. And so that's how we want to try to proceed. And if we can first have Ann Hopkins come next. Is Ann in the room right now? And I think somebody's, Ann's going to be continuing with somebody. Is Mary Mueller here? Is Mary here? (Whereupon, no response was had.) THE CHAIR: All right. Then we'll get you next, and right after Jackie Kittrell. So we'll do Jackie Kittrell and then we will do Ann. Jackie? Thank you so much for joining us, Ms. Kittrell. PRESENTATION BY JACKIE KITTRELL MS. KITTRELL: Just wanted to make sure that Mary wasn't here. I'll try to be quick. THE CHAIR: No. Take your time. You have full time. MS. KITTRELL: My name is Jackie Kittrell. I'm a private-interest attorney who practices near Oak Ridge, in Knoxville, Tennessee. I am general counsel for a group called American Environmental Health Studies Project, which are, is a non-profit group that does research into atomic policies, and does litigation. My main body of work is environmental whistle-blower litigation in and around Oak Ridge where employees and community members try to disclose environmental problems in the, in the, in their workplace or in the town and get retaliated against by the dominant employer in Oak Ridge. We've carried several of these cases to successful conclusion in front of the Department of Labor, and the Department of Labor has found that it is a very, very difficult proposition to speak truthfully without fear of retribution in Oak Ridge. I also represent, along with other counsel, over 1,600 victims of Vanderbilt University's radiation experiment in the '40s, and there's actually another 1,600 that we represent that are members of a later-created control group who don't know whether they were exposed to radiation or not, because of the way Vanderbilt has maintained their records. It's a class action. It's filed in Federal Court in Nashville. I've, I heard that my co-counsel, Don Arbitlit, addressed you all in San Francisco about the Vanderbilt case, and I won't go into the factual background of that case. But I will answer questions if you want to ask them. I'm here mainly to essentially ask you to consider coming to Tennessee in a field hearing. I will quickly tell you who you might meet if you come to Tennessee, and you could either come to Nashville or you could come to Oak Ridge. They're about two, two and a-half hours apart, so wherever you come we could easily, more easily get people to one city or another who are in the other city than we could get any of them to Cincinnati. We have heard back about a month ago that you all were going to come to Tennessee and then had decided not to because of time. Our group will gladly ask anyone, or, or represent to anyone that you all need more time to complete the final project if you will agree to come and, and receive testimony from some very interesting people. Besides the victims in, at Vanderbilt that we have contact with and can, and can ask to come to the hearing, and they number about 200 victims and family members, most of whom are either elderly and, and too frail or, or ill to travel, or who work and cannot take three days off to come to, to, out of town, besides those people we have also found indication and have actually contacted a few of the victims, people who were also given radioactive iron during the '40s and early '40s at Meharry Medical School. We found records in the archives, looked at isotope records that are kept there, where the Government, even in the early '40s or mid-'40s, had approved a procedure for approving human use of radioisotopes. We found that the same researcher who dosed the women and children at Vanderbilt went to Meharry and requested radioactive iron-55, -59 to give to 1,000 consecutive admissions to what was then Hubbard Hospital. It is now Meharry Hospital. So we have some of those people. If you've, from Oak Ridge you've heard from, from Mr. Row about some of the, the experiments. I know about some of those, but the ones I'm going to tell you about are ones where we have personal contact with people who could come and talk to you. At Oak Ridge Institution of Nuclear Studies in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s there was a cancer hospital there where people were treated for cancer much like, sounds much like the Cincinnati treatment studies, although I'm not part of that case. The ORINS was an institute whose operating expenses came totally from the AEC, and then they received other moneys from other agencies to do special research projects. The, the particular research projects I know about is the one that was funded by NASA in the '60s, and it involved giving total-body irradiation to a number of patients, most of whom were, were uninsured people from the surrounding rural areas around Oak Ridge and from the worker population who were also solicited to come to ORINS when they got sick with cancer. There's one patient in particular who was a worker at K-25 and who came to ORINS for treatment for his lymphoma. I know from a personal review of his records that he received over 2,000 rems two times during a three-year treatment period. He was admitted five times to ORINS. He received 2,000 rads, or rems twice, and had started on his third course of 2,000 rems. Now, he received this over a ten-day period of time, so he received it at a slower rate than I guess would have killed him if he got it all at once. The third treatment had begun and a nurse created a note in his files that said, "This patient isn't tolerating this treatment well." But they continued it and he died during the course of that treatment. This is in, in the mid '60s. There are several other patients who, who have either survived or whose family members are still alive and would be willing to speak to the panel. ORINS also had what they called an "over-50 rems study," in which they purported to study workers who had been inadvertently dosed with 50 rems or more during the course of their work. There are some medical files that we have seen that indicate that some workers who were admitted to ORINS for cancer treatment were given 50 rems of gamma radiation, total-body, and then put in that study. And I'm not sure under what specifications. They did not get that 50 rems at work. They got it when they were received into the treatment of ORINS. There was, there were other patients at ORINS who were given oral radioactive lithium and radioactive iron-59 for no apparent therapeutic reasons, but because there was interest in the toxicological effects of these substances. There have been intentional radioactive iodine releases in Oak Ridge for military purposes, much like the Green Run at Hanford, but I don't think as many curies. I'm just not sure. These happened in 1949. There was a lot of interest in collecting children's teeth. And to this day workers at ORNL are sent out every three months on what are called "milk runs" to check all the milk in the dairies in the area in like, you know, the surrounding counties around their community. There is a (sic) African American community in Oak Ridge called Scarborough that was where the Army, which created Oak Ridge back in the '40s, was where the Army made Black people live. It was a dangerous, segregated community. They were forced to live there. The, the population of that community has stayed kind of intact, and it is considered a predominantly Black neighborhood now, even in Oak Ridge. It is the closest community of all to the plants. It sits right, it abuts Y-12, which are, is where the nuclear bombs are made and the uranium is handled. The creek that flows through their communities was where 2.4 million tons of mercury was released over a 30-year period of time and not disclosed to the community until 1983. These people of whom I'm also in touch feel like they've been experimented on. They tell us stories that during the war married men and women were not allowed to live together in their communities; that if women, Black women got pregnant, that they were made to quit their jobs and leave Oak Ridge. And a lot of it is in terms of anecdotal information. It's from people who are fairly sick or old now, but they're willing to talk about this. And it's still very frightening for them. THE CHAIR: We're going to have to cut off, but let me say this: First of all, this is very important. We, in the Interim Report, which you know, which we gave today, does announce finally and formally that we are going to use Oak Ridge as a (sic) institutional case study, so that you, we're going to put a lot of attention, a lot of attention to the Oak Ridge situation. And I think the challenge becomes, because if we are, we're going to have to get back with you and interview you, and there will be a lot of staff in Oak Ridge. I don't know, and I can't promise today that we can do a, a full Outreach Committee, but it just seems to me that it is inevitable that there will be opportunity for you and, and, and, and, and, and those who you are advocating on behalf to, for us to hear their testimony in some form and affect that case study, because it's, we're only choosing two sites for case studies, and that's one of the two. So I guess what I'm saying is that you've traveled a long way. Please know that, that we are going to shine various magnifying glasses on your experiences in Oak Ridge, and your story has not been part of that analysis. MS. KITTRELL: Well, my story is simply as an advocate for the people who are there. They are the ones who should be saying it. There's a great saying by Miles Horton that, "We make the road by walking," and you all have a road to make. I, mean, no one's done this before, and I just think that it really pays off if you go to the sources and get people on the road. THE CHAIR: That's, that's, that's very compelling. Would you, although I think we know you and staff knows you, so I don't think I need to direct you anywhere. Just know that we'll be back in touch with you. MS. KITTRELL: Okay. Thank you. THE CHAIR: All right, thank you. And I very much appreciate it. Mary Mueller and Ann Hopkins? Welcome to both of you. PRESENTATION BY ANN HOPKINS through MARY MUELLER: MS. MUELLER: Hi. I'm going to be reading a statement for Ann Hopkins. It is very difficult for her to speak. A SPECTATOR: You have to talk right into the microphone. MS. MUELLER: I'm going to be reading a statement for Ann Hopkins because speaking is difficult for her. "In the summer of 1985 my father, Ralph Wagger, moved the family to Richland, the beltroad community for the Hanford Project in Washington State. Ralph was to work at the lab in a restricted area with radioactive material and animals, mice, dogs, and primates. He had a top-secret clearance, a scrambler device for phone conversation, and great enthusiasm. Despite the stamp of, of secrecy on the town, we were always aware of what Dad did, did at work. I was nine, entering the fifth grade. The move was exciting. The land was beautiful, compelling, waiting to be explored. Shortly after school started, my class was required to bring a fee, $1.50, to pay the military for dog tags that we were to wear for identification. The teacher explained in detail, although briefly, that it seemed to me that Richland was a first-strike target when the bombs came, as they would momentarily, the children, if not dead, would wish they were. There would be no medical care, especially for us. We were expendable. New children could be produced, and as children, we had nothing to contribute to the war effort. The tags were to identify us for the morgue. A convenience. Back East the parents of our neighbors had been upset when their children had some pictures of my father in a textbook of oncology and so-called "monsters." No one had been concerned to my sensitivity then. I wondered if any parents were concerned about our sensitivity with the dog tags. The teacher had further warned us that whatever we said was being recorded in a dossier that could keep us from acceptability. It was all very vague, but I was thinking I didn't like what was going on at Hanford, didn't trust the, didn't trust the secrecy or want to be involved. But I was learning quick: Don't talk, don't think, or if you do, keep it to yourself. I loved exploring the land along the river banks toward the restricted area. I didn't tell where I went and nobody asked. Much of the local wildlife I found dead or dying. I would bury the dead and bring home the dying. Levio Boostead (phonetic), a co-worker of my father with a Ph.D. in veterinary medicine, would make house calls for my sick menagerie. Without realizing it, I was helping them gather specimens. No one said anything. I knew nothing about a dosimeter, or that I should be keeping track of radiation doses, as I would later be asked to prove that radiation made me sick, destroyed my immune system, caused skin melanomas, and that the children over a 20-year period required many treatments, cost a lot of money, took a lot of time away from work and family. The first sign something was wrong occurred the first year I was at Hanford. My skin would swell and break open and ooze fluid. I was taken to a local dermatologist, and as was not the norm, my father came to the appointment to question the doctor. It was decided I had contact allergy, not an internal, not an internally-generated problem like a food allergy or a disease process. It was recommended, an ointment was recommended that was used by the military in some locales. It was black tar-like, and it was smelly. And of course, it rubbed off. I progressed from chronic to debilitating fatigue, unrelieved by sleep; dizziness; loss of weight; swollen glands; sweat that seemed to burn the skin's surface; speaking of skin lesions; as well as malignancies. Currently I'm in hospice care. I'm living far beyond expectations. My father became ill a few years after work at Hanford. Traveling to bomb test sites, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, the AEC, and Washington, et cetera, he was not excited about it. He was frightened. In a panic, looked for a cure or reverse. We talked of suicide rather than have radiation sickness. My teeth have deformed. He was forced to see a psychiatrist, military intelligence, and be incarcerated first in a private facility that appeared to have a large clientele from the Hanford works. He spent a long confinement in the state mental hospital. He was in a locked ward and looked disheveled and gaunt and when we went to visit him shortly before his release. Ralph later was curiously rehabilitated in response to a letter from Shields Warren needing his data in a report issued in 1957 by the National Academy of Science. His health declined in, with the attenuated conditions of radiation poisoning. He left Hanford at age 55, and then in frustration over his health, committed suicide in 1957. Do you have questions? THE CHAIR: Let's see. Where, first of all, this is the, again, it's, it's particularly interesting to hear about the, the dog tags again. When we were in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago we had someone testify about the dog tags, and in fact that witness was, was trying to find others, in fact, that had, had the experience of a, the dog tags. And we were all kind of perplexed about it. And I know the staff has been involved in, in trying to go out to Hanford and try to understand what this was all about. Also, what I've heard in the testimony that also reiterates something I heard in reference to, you know, that recording of activity and behavior. We do know that the witness that we heard again in San Francisco mentioned they were, she was required to keep a diary, and that the diary was, was, was, the school folks made her keep a diary at home, and the parents participated in the process of keeping that diary. So this is the second time we've, we have heard this similar kind of, of story, and we're working on it. I think we're coming, we're coming out to Spokane the, in, -- DR. STEVENSON: About a month. THE CHAIR: -- in about a month, and we'll have a chance to explore some of these issues in a little greater detail. I don't know if Mary Ann or Lois have any specific questions that we need to ask today. DR. STEVENSON: No. Just that, again, this, this recurrence of the dog-tag story is something we find very compelling. THE CHAIR: Ann Hopkins has been traveling a lot. I mention, because we've seen Ann in Washington, on the very first meeting I think was here with us, and now here today. One of the things I need to know, to understand, is we need to get more information from Ann. Would it be easier and better for us to try to do that in a smaller setting? I know that sometimes speech may be difficult, but what, what worries me is, I mean, I want us to be able to ask you questions later. Instead of, are you living, -- She's living in Washington now? MS. MUELLER: Yes. THE CHAIR: Since we're coming that way, obviously you're traveling a lot, and I would like to minimize the inconvenience, but perhaps we can schedule some smaller time if we come this way. And it was interesting to hear this, but I'm not sure we need to go through more. Lois? MS. NORRIS: At the time we heard the first reference about the dog tags when we were in San Francisco, I believe the woman who told us about that experience said that at the time the dog tags were issued that she apparently had undergone some kind of a test. And she said she remembered, she was a child, as were you, and she remembered being placed in a tube with holes in it. You didn't? MS. HOPKINS: (Nodded no.) MS. NORRIS: Remember any kind of similar experience? And then she said, I thought, if my recollection serves me correctly, that dog tags were given to her, and she was never really told why she got them, or she doesn't remember anything told why she had a those dog tags. MS. MUELLER: She's writing an answer. MS. HOPKINS (through Ms. Mueller): We were told why. We were told why. MS. NORRIS: I understood that. That is, was so interesting for us to hear that, because she didn't know and we didn't know, or didn't know until we heard. Thank you. MS. MUELLER: Thank you. DR. STEVENSON: May I, may I ask just, just one question before you, before you go? I was wondering whether you could say anything about your sense of how much that happened to you at Hanford was related to work going on generally at the Hanford reservation, and how much of it was more personal in the sense that it related to things that your father was doing, experiments that he might have been conducting on his own? (Whereupon, Ms. Hopkins wrote.) MS. MUELLER: Both. They were interrelated. He got the instruments from work. DR. STEVENSON: Say it again? MS. MUELLER: Both. They were interrelated. He got the instruments from work. DR. TUCKSON: And the work was at --? MS. MUELLER: Hanford. THE CHAIR: So it's all interrelated? MS. MUELLER: Yeah. THE CHAIR: At what age do you recall, Ann, I mean, of being, of first feeling affected, or that something was, was, was not right? At what age were you when you first started feeling -- MS. MUELLER: Ten. THE CHAIR: Ten years of age. Humm, age ten. You were, you were, you were living a, a, a very healthy life as, playing with other children and so forth, so it was age ten? MS. MUELLER: It was the atmosphere at Hanford. She noticed shortly after moving there she didn't feel right. Well, actually I should explain the testimony, moving to Hanford. THE CHAIR: Uh-huh. Okay. DR. STEVENSON: Would it be possible for us to have a copy of the statement? MS. MUELLER: I guess you could make a Xerox. DR. STEVENSON: If you could give it to one of the staff, please. THE CHAIR: Absolutely. And I wonder, in terms of, of, Ann, of your medical history, given that, that your father was, was, was a physician and a scientist, one might make the assumption that you have a fairly detailed medical history that's accessible. Is that a legitimate conclusion? MS. MUELLER: No, they, I think there's a lot missing. He, he was her doctor and she doesn't have his records. THE CHAIR: At some point would it be reasonable to think that, that she spent time in hospital that, Ann, that would have been in hospitals and, therefore, we would at least be able to, or you might have access to those hospital records? MS. MUELLER: Many hos-, many records there. THE CHAIR: There are many records there? Do you, well, we would be just, I think very important and helpful, Ann, if you could get those and supply those so that we can take a look and, and just as much of the records that you do have. You have a very compelling story and we would like to understand it better. But to be really, we're going to, to need to get more information if we're going to fully understand that. And I would just hope that we might be of help to you in trying to retrieve those. (Whereupon, Ms. Hopkins wrote.) MS. MUELLER: I'm trying to get medical records from -- She's got the name of a hospital here, which I'm trying to read this writing. Is it Radliffe, or -- THE CHAIR: That's all right. We have time. MS. MUELLER: It's a hospital in Richland, Katwood (phonetic). THE CHAIR: Okay. So try to get your records from there. MS. MUELLER: Yeah. THE CHAIR: All right. Well, again, so what I think we need to do, Ann, is, and let me say on behalf of the Committee, we really appreciate the persistence, your willingness to participate in this process, and we just need, to do justice to this we really are going to need to get at as much of the medical record that we can so we can understand this case better. And if you're trying to do that and our folks can be of any assistance to you, and thank you. Wait a minute. MS. MUELLER: I don't know if she wanted to go into this. No, she does't want to go into that, so -- THE CHAIR: And we'll talk with you again later. And by the way, I've been corrected. I assumed when you said you lived in Washington that that was the state, and it was D.C., and so that makes it even easier for us to have a chance to speak with you further. And thank you for coming so far. We appreciate it. Thank you for working with us. MS. MUELLER: Thank you. THE CHAIR: Our next speaker is Dr. Kathleen Platoni. Did I do that right? Did I so botch it that she doesn't know who I'm calling? Kathleen? (Whereupon, no response was had.) THE CHAIR: All right, we'll, we'll move on and maybe she will come back. Our next speaker is Daryl Kimball. Mr. Daryl Kimball. And I know I said that right, Kimball, that one. PRESENTATION BY DARYL KIMBALL: MR. KIMBALL: Good afternoon. THE CHAIR: Good afternoon. MR. KIMBALL: I don't have any compelling testimony of any of the victims who have spoken with you today do, and the families, but as Associate Director for Policy at Physicians for Social Responsibility, we've been following these proceedings of your committee and I would like to share an observation about this exercise, this particular field hearing, and also ask a question about Outreach to the extent you all, as representatives of the Committee, can answer the question. The observation I'd like to make, and I think this is obvious to all of us who are here, but I would hope you would carry this back to the rest of the committee members, as it's a concern to many of the people in the audience, is that this kind of hearing is extremely valuable to your investigation in many ways. It's difficult to quantify it in many ways, but in one particular way it, it can be quantified, and, and that is in the, the particular case of the Saenger experiments. We've heard that many of the, the records are missing, certain important pieces of information. And only if we were in a discussion and interchange with the families can you access information about what the victims, the subjects of the experiments were feeling, how they're behaving, were the families informed, et cetera, through this type of, of process. And it is of some concern to, to, to us and to many of the other people who appeared here today that this opportunity to have this sort of interchange with other experimental subjects can take place. And you obviously have limitations of time, staffing, and, and, and simple logistic to do this with the, the, the expanding universe of subjects involved in these experiments, but I hope that, that you three and the staff will take back to the rest of the Committee the, the view that this is an extremely important aspect of the investigation that, that cannot be left aside because of the other enormous tasks that you have to undertake. And I know that you all have been discussing with various representatives of victims' organizations alternatives and, and new ideas for outreach. I encourage you to keep that dialogue up and to find and, new and creative ways to make yourselves available to these families, and, and vice-versa. And on that point, I would like to ask you to the extent that you can describe a little bit further the specific outreach plans that you all have in mind as, as the Chair of the Outreach Committee in the coming months. The Interim Report, which was issued today, has about a page and a-half on outreach, and it does effectively, I think, communicate your, your sincere, I think it's sincere, aspects of this investigation, but it, of course, has left some questions unanswered. Can you tell us, can you take this opportunity to expand upon how you will be continuing the outreach efforts in particular? How might the Committee be able to make use of the information that you've obtained from the Department of Energy on the calls that have gone into the 1-800 hotline? Can you answer that question for me? And that's, that's basically all I have. And I'll have many other opportunities to speak and meet with you back in Washington. THE CHAIR: Well, Daryl, I very much appreciate the question and, and, and your suggestions. Let me say that the, the, what, what is definite is that we will make two more visits, one to Spokane and one to the Santa Fe/Albuquerque area. We're not sure at this moment whether the hearing will be at Santa Fe or Albuquerque in terms of where it will be. Those will be very much like today in terms of length and, and, and, and intensity. Also what will continue to occur, as we did today, will be the individual follow-ups of people as they have been identified and the staff works with them over time. There are already a number of people who have come forward, and we've met in public hearings and outreach programs already. So there's a lot of dialogue. Of course, each of our other committee meetings from here on out will always have several hours dedicated to public outreach and public testimony. Finally, I know that there are some continuing discussions, of which you will be a part of with, with some of the more formal organizations representing advocates' organizations as we explore ways in which we can, within the constraints that we operate under, be able to continue to work more effectively and efficiently together, utilizing both of our resources in reaching out. I would not want to pre-judge what those are, will be, because we still, as you know better or as well as I, still talk about those. I will certainly expect that the, that you will have significantly important ideas on that score. The DOE hotline activity, the Committee still has, I think, some more to talk about in terms of how we're going to continue to use that activity. And I really don't, if you don't mind, I just don't want to get into it, only because my subcommittee has not made a formal decision of that, and it's the subject of our next conversation. Somebody else has so -- so, for the -- DR. STEVENSON: No, those are just -- THE CHAIR: So let me just stop there and say that I think there are, a great deal of how we would proceed in terms of working with constituents and advocacy groups is generated on what people bring to us as well as what we bring to that meeting. DR. STEVENSON: If I may, Reed. You asked how we use the help-line calls. The staff has gone through almost 100,000, the entire number that have come in, and we've identified the ones that look like they might relate to anything that would fall under the charge of the Committee. We've done what we have to do under the Privacy Act. We got redacted copies of this information, gave it back to the Department of Energy. They've now sent out letters to the hundreds of people we've identified asking permission that the Committee be able to contact those people, and we intend to do that as soon as we get responses from them. We're also going on the Internet shortly with all of our basic committee documents, including the, the Transcripts of the meetings, and we're going to have a news group, and if possible, to have dialogue with people who didn't, who can gain access to us through the Internet. So that's a couple of other things. THE CHAIR: And also, I don't think I'm able to say this in fact, it isn't, but we've been exploring the idea also of how we publish and get the information out about the, immediately after every committee meeting; and also what our, some of your topics that we've been wrestling with that we need more help with, and getting that through and getting that out on the system. And hopefully that will happend with some of the advocacy community with some support from us. And there are a couple of things which we're trying to work through. MR. KIMBALL: Of course. Well, that can, we'll look forward to that. And of course it might be helpful to come to that as you approach the Governmental Affairs Meeting in Washington in November. THE CHAIR: Daryl, thank you very much. Let me, I've been given a note to, that the way in which we're going to finish up, there are three left. We are very happy that, to hear from the three that we have left. We have the benefit of the fact that we don't have to rush like crazy, and we are still fresh enough to hear each of the three and, and, and give each of them our full attention. First, Ms. Vina Colley, Colley. Then Ms. Diana Salsbury, and then Geoffrey Sea or Geoffrey Sea. A SPECTATOR: Sea. THE CHAIR: Sea. You told me that before. Is it correct, Ms. Vina Colley? MS. COLLEY: Yes, it's Vina. THE CHAIR: Vina Colley, welcome. PRESENTATION BY VINA COLLEY: MS. COLLEY: Thank you. After sitting here all day, I'm pretty tired. And I've changed my speech I don't know how many times, so I hope it turns out okay. THE CHAIR: I'm sure it will. MS. COLLEY: I signed in ahead, in advance, and it seems when people sign in they put them in last place. THE CHAIR: Let me just say, if we owe you an apology, I'm willing to give it. We tried to do our best by everybody, and if we've done wrong by you, please, please forgive us and get your energy up, because our energy's up, and we're going to listen to you with a lot of enthusiasm. MS. COLLEY: My name is Vina Colley, and I'm a contaminated woman, too, from the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. I'm presently a member of PRESS, Portsmouth Residents for Environmental Safety and Security. I'm also a member, PRESS, also a member of the Military Production Network, which serves as a link of over, to over 40 organizations of communities living in the shadows of the nuclear facility. I also serve on the Committee for the New Task Force on Human Rights and Radiation, Radiation Exposures. I was hired in 1980 as electrician, and as electrician I was allowed to travel all over the site. I was, I had been in many, many buildings. I was not aware of it at the time, but now I am aware I was being exposed to UF-6, TF, triphenylmethane, PCBs, fluorides, uranium, chromium, and a variety of radioactive elements including technetium. Now I'm aware of possible plutonium. Blood tests show that I have had PCBs in my blood. I've had fluorides in my urinalysis. I've had uranium-235 in my lungs from the environment. I have had safety complaints since 1983. My reason for doing this was to get the plant cleaned up, but as a result of my complaints I lost my job, basically, and more important, I lost my health. I've had three tumors, a total hysterectomy, bronchitis, shortness of breath, loss of hair, thyroid problems, and excessive weight gain, arthritis, mem-, sometimes memory loss. It's kind of hard unless I can keep things written down. And all of this from my exposures from the Portmouth uranium facilities. And by the way, that's not Fernald. Because it's in Ohio everybody thinks it's Fernald. I want to make sure, clear that these are two different facilities. The main thing, also, is that the company has falsified my records. I personally have an interest in the radiation experiments on humans because I am a living example of one. After, and I want to tell you, too, I'll also -- I sat on my glasses and broke them. I can't hardly see real well. And after watching or reading newspaper articles about body parts of nuclear, nuclear worker victims, I started reading my medical records from the hospital and realized that some of, somebody got in my tissue and the tissue was missing. For the last eight years I have been getting information about the site. I now have over 400 families of workers that have died of cancer or heart problems at that facility, and every day I get a call of another victim. I also have been sent to the Cincinnati Hospital by Worker's Compensation, as Owen Thompson had. I've been sent to more than 60 doctors, and I get, even got so I just lost count of doctors. They make me take these X-rays. They make me take tests they know I'm allergic to now, because my skin is, is to sensitive from working in the uranium facility. As far back as 1957, two workers, workers were paid for radiation illnesses. As far back as 1957 our government knew that radiation was killing the workers in the facility. They paid two from our plant. I had other workers, their names and the amount that they paid these workers, and many of them came from Oak Ridge. I think that Herb Smith was one of the workers, one of the first workers I believe. I think he was paid $12,800. And Nathan Sayers (phonetic), I have to go back and get the records. I'm sorry I don't have them with me today. So why was Dr. Saenger given money from our government to do these experiments when the Government already knew? It's beyond me. I sit here today and I listen to some of this stuff and my heart just aches for the families. My heart aches for the downwinder communities, and my heart aches for the workers that have been the real victims inside these facilities. The, I listened to the Fernald worker come up here and talk about the transuranic autopsy. I didn't know anything about this worker's autopsy when I went to this facility, until 1980. My government knew of the effects and they never told me. I never even graduated from high school. I couldn't set down and write you up a letter. Because of all this I have to sit down and try to put a letter together. I have to listen to all this and think about examples. I have to listen to all the victims and people that are sick and dying of leukemia and cancer. You know, we're in a health crisis in the United States because we have radiated and killed our own people, all for profit. And then last night I'm looking at a paper on top, on, on the table, and what does it say? Our local hospital is also mixed up in these experimentations. But that shouldn't surprise me any, since someone stole my tissue. I believe that Dr. Saenger and anyone involved in giving him that money to do that experiment should be tried for murder. Anyone who excuses him may just as well excuse Hitler for his experimental human experimentation. You know, I have a worker who Worker's Comp. paid her $500 because she was a nuisance. It's a nuisance fee because she didn't have enough proof at this time that her husband was in 300,000 counts, in the X-326 building where many workers have died. This is where they processed -- And may I have your attention, please? This is where they processed highly enriched uranium. Workers were exposed to neutrons. Those little old badges don't pick up exposure that these workers have gotten. In 1980 these workers, in '79 they went to Washington, D.C., screaming about the safety issues. And today, 1994, this facility still has not been broken. The story has not come out. No one really cares about that community, because we live in a little rural Appalachia community, poorly uneducated, and there's no other jobs. Today we are still being experimented on. Thank you. THE CHAIR: Thank you very much. Let me ask you again, when you go to work in, in a plant like that, what is the nature of the relationship between you and, and, and, and a medical department, a (sic) occupational health department? How does that work? MS. COLLEY: They don't have an occupational doctor there. They have an aerospace doctor in our facility. They have doctors not even qualified to look at you as a worker. And you've, you're asked to wear hard hats and safety glasses. You think it's the safest plant you ever worked in, because I never had to wear hard hats and safety glasses. I'm just a little farm girl. THE CHAIR: So then, again, in your line of work did you have to wear badges or anything? MS. COLLEY: We wore badges, but those badges did not take exposure. And workers were taking the badges apart, and there's nothing behind them. We were given urinalyses when we worked in certain areas. Now that I have studied and learned things, we were supposed to be given the urinalyses. Why weren't we spraying with an air hose uranium contaminants? You did work in confined space, no respiratory protection, nothing, because the Company never told us. They never surveyed any of the areas, either. THE CHAIR: Thank you. I think you're answering my questions, but I want to make sure one more time. The, I want make sure I don't leave you without this. When you had the badges, whether they had anything on them or behind them or not, did somebody come around at some regular interval and exchange those badges? MS. COLLEY: They took them at the main gate. THE CHAIR: What, how often? MS. COLLEY: I'm not sure. Maybe three months. THE CHAIR: Right. MS. COLLEY: But I don't know. I'm not sure. THE CHAIR: But at no point -- well, let me ask you this: At any point did a trained person sit with you and go over your -- MS. COLLEY: No. THE CHAIR: -- case? MS. COLLEY: No. No. DR. TUCKSON: Now, if you -- MS. COLLEY: They were ordered by Worker's Comp to give them my exposure records in '89, I think, or '87 and, and '89. THE CHAIR: I'm, I'm not an expert on the relationship between your plant and the government agency. Can you describe to me that relationship between them? MS. COLLEY: It's Department of Energy, Department of Defense. It was Goodyear Atomic, Martin Marietta, ERDA in early years. THE CHAIR: So the, and as to the, it started out as a government facility that they, was taken over by a private corporation, or was it a private corporation that the Government -- MS. COLLEY: You think they can put any name they want, but it's a government. But it's us paying them. THE CHAIR: But it's a private company? MS. COLLEY: No. They're trying to put private and commercially. They're trying get out of it. THE CHAIR: All right. So it's, let me just make, I mean, from your -- MS. COLLEY: It's under the new definition of "corporation." They're trying to privatize the site. They're trying to commercialize the site. THE CHAIR: Okay. So again, here's how to ask this question. Your paycheck, is it a government paycheck or a company paycheck? MS. COLLEY: I haven't received a paycheck since 1981, which -- THE CHAIR: In '85? MS. COLLEY: -- it had the word "Atomic" in it, and then "Martin Marietta." THE CHAIR: Okay. Now, are there government, were you aware of any government oversight or any government expectations in the area of occupational safety that the Government has for its contractors? MS. COLLEY: No. There was a health physics. Is that what you're talking about, outside? THE CHAIR: Well, there's a government, the Government often has rules about -- MS. COLLEY: There's no rules in the Department of Energy sites. Matter of fact, they just found, they just found 500 and some violations about a year ago, the same violations that they had for the last ten or 15 years at these sites. THE CHAIR: All right. Any other questions? MS. COLLEY: And I do have a list of the workers' names and when they died with me, but I have some at home. MS. NORRIS: I do have a question. Do you feel you lost your job in retribution because you spoke out? MS. COLLEY: The, I lost my job because I spoke out on health and safety issues, and also the Company turned me down on physical. I was fortunate enough here lately to win a Worker's Compensation claim where they have to reinstate me back to 1982 for loss of earning capacity, but the company still refuses to give me the medical disability for what they owe me. But money cannot pay for what the Government's paid to me and all these other people. I want justice. I don't want money. I want justice. THE CHAIR: Thank you. The staff people are standing there to get that stuff. Ms. Diana, Ms. Diana Salisbury. Thank you for your patience, and we're still revved with energy. MS. SALISBURY: Right. THE CHAIR: We really are. MS. SALISBURY: I, I hope you are, because I'm beginning to lose mine. But -- THE CHAIR: Well, I really thank you for staying the course. PRESENTATION BY DIANA SALSBURY: MS. SALSBURY: That's the comments I've started out with today, but of course, you always change them. I would like to thank you for coming to Cincinnati, and I would like to thank you for your courtesy and your attention in what is a very emotional issue for everybody, I'm sure for you as well. I don't know ultimately what you will be able to recommend, but I hope this gives a very broad view of a very complicated and dark and seedy chapter in our nation's history. We have lived it as a nightmare, and I think at this point what I would like to do is talk about the Piketon site, the Portsmouth gaseous uranium diffusion plant which is in rural southern Ohio, Appalachia, my home. You've met four of us today, and I think that should give you an indication of what happens when you put these facilities away from people. Owen Thompson, you met him, good old boy, not afraid of anything. Look at Owen. Look at Owen. He trusted his government. That plant is run by Martin Marietta, former Goodyear Atomic. Now it's under USEC, the private corporation created in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Now, Energy Policy Act of 1992 has allowed the Department of Energy to essentially bow out of its authority and transfer licensing of that site to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant will operate now as a commercial facility, and the Department of Energy will not be responsible for what has happened on site at that plant after June of 1993, or July 1 maybe, of 1993. Now, what that in effect does is it makes nobody responsible. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not going to demand that anything be done, and that's the bottom line. You have heard Vina tell you there were 500 violations cited. What is allowed in the rural communities is literally a crime. I can tell you that. She's not joking. This is the Tiger Report from 1990. It cites 72 major violations, including NEPA, Clean Water Act. There's contamination not addressed in Worker Health and Safety; no chain of command; no chain of procedure to collect samples for air, for soil, for water, for just basic National Environmental Policy Act. In fact, in this report there is a whole section that says there's nobody on site out there who even knows NEPA, let alone how to implement it. Now, I was going to copy the more salient, juicy passage from this. You know, I thought I'd submit that with my report. Look at my yellow papers. It would be easier just to order you one. This is the assessment from 1985 -- the same violations. The same violations, essentially. This one in 1990 is a little hotter. It's, it's a little more impatient, but essentially the same conditions. Now, remember, we are talking about things that were done in the 1940s and the 1950s when the justification is people don't know any better. This is 1985. This is 1990. The report Vina referred to was 1994. We know better. We don't care. This is not at all in any way directed to you or to the present Administration. In fact, that is, if anything, the only bright spot in this, is that someone has finally decided to take a look at this. But the hard reality is some of us have been in more danger from our own government than we have ever been from a foreign power. We were the ones who were sacrificed for the national security of the rest of us, and there is something very wrong with that. There's something terribly wrong with that. And it's horrible that it happened four decades ago, and it's even more horrible that it's not being addressed honestly and openly now. We still, and you heard again, Tom and Owen talk to you about these things. There is a secret crew that's on call at the Piketon plant, and they go do things that these inspectors never see or know about. The uranium plant from Huntington, West Virginia, that was so contaminated that it had to be buried in a shallow trench, that's what Owen Thompson buried, was a contaminated plant. What you, what he thought was green water in that open trench was nickel. That was contaminated, a whole contaminated factory. It was so contaminated that two contractors who were involved in dismantling it, one died from the exposure. It sparked and killed him. The other one died within ten days. That's the kind of material they took for Owen Thompson to haul on a hay wagon at night with guards standing around in a circle with machine guns. There's something very wrong with that. There's something very wrong with all of this. It's, it's just simply not justifiable. Now, in 1978, 21,100 pounds, in fact 21,125 pounds of highly enriched uranium in mines, these, the storage units, the uranium in its natural form, unriches the uranium yellow cake at three percent, Piketon processes it from three to 97, the very high assay. And from there it goes on into the, into the military weaponry. When that comes off the line it is at that 96.6 assay level. It's not low-level waste in the sense of its effect, "low-level" implying it's harmless. It's certainly not. It's highly enriched stuff. A cylinder was dropped because the straddle buggy used to move it off the line and ready for shipment had been defective, and reported as so, the straddle buggy failed and it was dropped. That cylinder ruptured and it released that 2,100 pounds of uranium hexafluoride into the atmosphere on that site. It was never reported as such in the newspapers. No alarms were ever sounded. The community was never told to go inside. In fact, the only reports that ran in the paper was how the spill was minimal, the cleanup right away by work persons on site. The minimum spill has no counterproduct that I'm aware of in any military production history; 2,100 pounds in the air. And what didn't go in the air was piled, they were piling snow on the cylinder because it was very hot, temperature-wise and everything else. And then they flushed that material down the sewers. The servers feed Scioto River. That goes directly to the Ohio River. That has never been addressed as a problem, but in 1979, the year after this happened, Layton Hammond, who owns 1,500 acres on three sides of the plant site, had most of his trees die on one of those sides. But that has never been addressed. This incident is denied constantly. Now, I can prove that it happened because I have here a copy of the salient passages from the Controller General's report. I can prove that that happened. Here is the safety complaint that was written on those straddle buggies prior to that incident. Nothing was done. Nothing. And afterwards they sold the two straddle buggies to a junk dealer in Chillicothe, Ohio. Now, they only had two on site at the plant, so we don't know if this is a picture of that one or one just like it, but they both sat out there on site at this junk dealer's establishment, and area children climbed on them until they were cut apart and sold as scrap metal. That is the straddle buggy that dropped that very hot assay uranium, or one just like it, because there were two. Here is Tom Wikerson picture that shows the green growths and tumors on part of a deer that they were dressing. We don't imagine these things. Truly we don't. We don't imagine that we're sick. We don't imagine that the male population in Pike County ranks fiftieth in the nation for mortality rate. We don't imagine that. That's not from our imagination. We don't imagine that Portsmouth and Scioto County rank fifty-fifth in the nation in mortality rates from all types of cancer, all types of cancer. We don't imagine that. But it's never been addressed. It's constantly denied. We have no confidence at all that we are told the truth, because I heard two weeks ago that this plant was a model plant; that if the other facilities in the country had operated as this one had, there would be no problems at all. This is a model facility, and we're fortunate to have it run at the level that it is. There are references after references of the filters being removed so that uranium hexafluoride leaks around the gaskets, so that the releases are, are just kind of this constant oozing from the plant. It's also designed so that you can release, and, and it's intentionally done that way so that there can be releases. They are done. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you. Can, can we ask you some questions? MS. SALISBURY: Sure. DR. TUCKSON: First, it would be useful and I'd be interested in getting a copy of the study, "The Truth About Where You Live." That's apparently with, where you got the data from that talks about the incidence of infant mortality and cancer. MS. SALISBURY: Certainly. I'd be happy to furnish you a copy of that, because it's a book. DR. TUCKSON: Secondly, if we have to pay for it we have the resources to buy it. Let me ask you a philosophical question. One of the growing tenets in American public policy is "keep the Government out of regulating Americans' activities. Bureaucracy is bad. Government is bad." Most places I go I hear strong calls for minimizing the role of, of national government, for sure, federal government. Given your experience and your concerns, what would you advise us as we look to, let's say we were to make or suggest somebody be in charge of monitoring, of ensuring that certain things were done. Would you advise us to think that Government ought to be more involved, less involved? Should it be state government? Should it be somebody else? Have you all had a chance to think much about those questions? MS. SALSBURY: Who would we ask to look after us? Who always looks after us? Ourselves. We, we would be more careful than anybody else, I truly believe. I, I think if, if we had a support of federal and state experts, and, and people interested in working with us, that, that that probably would be the best way. I think there are many interests in that plant. The facility has dominated the community economically as well. Just flat out closing the gap would be another kind of disaster. So, so workers of that plant I would think also would have to be actively involved in what they were willing to put up with, balanced out against what could be done quickly, and what was in their employment needs. I, I think those are a lot of stakeholder interests, and I think they would have something to say about that. But I, I truly believe that one of, the things that went very wrong at many of these sites, and that one included, is the assumption that if nobody is complaining, everything is all right. DR. TUCKSON: Let me just make sure that, I think I, at one level I think I understand you. And by the way, I don't expect you to have the definitive answers today. MS. SALISBURY: And that's a very complicated and a very difficult question. DR. TUCKSON: That's, and I don't want to put you on the spot today, and I don't expect you to answer it. But as we continue our dialogue, which is what we're doing now, is I'd appreciate if the Portsmouth, if Piketon citizens or their environmental health and safety, if in a fact the people themselves ought to be able to participate, or as you described, it ought to be in control of protecting their own interests. Then the question becomes, still, the mechanisms that permit that to occur. And as we make recommendations it will be useful for you to think with us about how do we create a system that does that without, and, and do we just go ahead and, and, and make the recommendations that Government ought to have a system in place, or what should that system look like? And it would be important for you to help us to think about it. So I won't put you on the spot today, but to ask you to go back to your constituency and think about how we ought to make recommendations about this issue. Similarly, in terms of the workers, had it, is it your experience from talking with the people that you've been talking with, is it similar to what we just learned from, from, from, from Vita Colley, that there really is no medical or health oversight on a regular basis, or in her case even in episodic places available to the workers in these plants? MS. SALSBURY: It, it, it's not at all a program that is implemented. In fact, there is denial that there is need. There's denial that there is need, but it's perfectly safe. They just had an outing not too long ago and took their families to the buildings, yes, on a picnic I believe it was. So what, what we, we don't understand can hurt us, and people even with, living with that plant, I don't, I don't think they really, truly comprehend the effects of radiation, because you can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't touch it. It, it seems to be fine. DR. TUCKSON: Well, Ms. Salsbury, let me say this then as, as, as you go back and you, if you're, I don't know what your intents were today. If it was, first of all, get our attention, you got it. If it was to, and the combination of people that talked to us from, from that site raises it in our consciousness and makes us want to ask more questions and look at it, you, you got that accomplished. MS. SALSBURY: That, that's what we needed so desperately. We needed for you to really understand how bad it is. DR. TUCKSON: Right. Here's what we need now. And I, I'm, I'm very serious about that. If we are to move from, from this point to a new point, a better point, it really will require your best thinking with us about what ought to be recommended; what are the next steps and what are the in-, the consequences of those steps. And so I would just say again, now that you've got our attention, I really would ask you to stay and dialogue with us and let's move this to the next stage and say, "All right, now, now, now what are the recommendations? What are the kind of interventions, and what would make sense?" And I'd like us to be able to explore your thinking on this as we go forward. Daryl Kimball kind of asked me that a moment ago, and I am glad my answer was so pitiful because, about what was the Outreach Committee going to do next. And, you know, Daryl, who's still in the audience, what occurs to me is that a lot of the action of the Outreach Committee, although it is continued to be important to discover, our tenure and our resources and our scope doesn't allow us to discover everything. But certainly we're going to have to starting to think now about, and think with people about what the next steps are. And so that I think the Outreach Committee is going to have to continue to inform the work of the full committee with the questions, thinking of those with whom we've already been in touch with, and I think that starts to get at somehow our responsibilities. So, anyway, I look forward to that. I don't know if our committee has any other questions. MS. SALBURY: Thank you. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you. MS. SALSBURY: That is the most encouraging thing we have heard on that site in 40 years. Thank you. DR. TUCKSON: And now we're really happy to be hearing from Geoffrey Sea, and after three times I've got it. Geoffrey, thank you. And you get all the attention now, because you're it. PRESENTATION BY GEOFFREY SEA: MR. SEA: Well, I guess it's my job to wake everyone up. DR. TUCKSON: No, no. No, no. We're wide awake. MR. SEA: Well, this ought to do it anyway. DR. TUCKSON: Now you're making me nervous. MR. SEA: There are two possible attitudes toward the Holocaust which can be produced by nuclear warfare. One is total despair and confusion. The alternative is the adoption of an attitude of making the best of an admittedly bad situation. Those are not my words. They are the words of Eugene Saenger and one of his military medical colleagues at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Saenger and his team believed that they were working for some larger good, the preservation of combat effectiveness and a solidification of some selective elite in the event of a nuclear war. They knew that their actions would cause pain and death and suffering of individuals, some of which you've seen evidenced here today, but they believed that it was worth it for the attainment of some larger good. They believed it. They really believed it. And so did the physicians we hanged at Nuremberg. My name is Geoffrey Sea. I'm a health physicist. I'm here representing IRIS, International Radiation Injury Survivors, and involved in research with the law firm of Leiff, Cabraser & Heimann, a law firm in San Francisco that represents the classes of victims of the Vanderbilt University experiments on pregnant women, and with our co-counsel, the Alexander law firm, the one surviving subjects and six surviving families of the University of Cincinnati's experiments. Now, the physicians we hanged at Nuremberg were executed because we found them to have violated certain universal principles involving human experimentation. They didn't have to be written down, these principles, though they were written down. They didn't have to be codified or approved or implemented or rubber-stamped. We said that they were universal standards of human conduct. Summarized, those principles are: One, that, the subjects must give voluntary consents after being informed of the true potential hazards and true purposes of the research. Two, that appropriate animal experimentation must precede human use, and those animal experiments must prove the experimental treatment to be both safe and effective; That, three, that no injury must be done to the subject that is not outweighed by some potential benefit to that same individual, and this is the essential point. That benefit must not be to society at large or to some abstract notion in some hypothetical event. It must be to the individual to, who, who has that risk. What we've said at Nuremberg is that to violate these principles in war or in preparation for war constitutes a war crime; a crime against peace; a crime against humanity. What we said in Nuremberg was that such crimes are punishable. What will we say here in Cincinnati? What will you say in Washington, D.C.? We contend that the Saenger team violated each one of the principles of the Nuremberg Code. A 1971 review by the University of Cincinnati junior faculty essentially reached the same conclusion. They said, quote, Many patients in this project paid severely for their participation, and often without even knowing that they were part of an experiment, unquote. Now, there were two other so-called reviews in 1971 and 1972. I say "so-called," because both were conducted by individuals closely connected with the experimenters. In neither one of these reviews was any experimental subject or family member contacted or interviewed. That is an extraordinary fact, and it bears repeating. In neither of these reviews was any experimental subject or family member contacted or interviewed. In addition, none of these reviewers vigorously pursued the salient questions asked by the junior faculty. One, was cancer study the main object of the experiments? Two, what were the real risks to the patients? Three, did patients give informed consents to being used as experimental subjects? One of these so-called reviews was conducted by an ad hoc committee appointed by the Dean of the UCN Medical College and included two UC faculty members. We need not belabor the conflict of interests inherent in such a project, but we do need to point out some obvious and we think intentional errors of their report. First, the ad hock committee gave the history of written standards for human experimentation to 1964 in the Declaration of Helsinki. There's no mention of any ethical code before that date. The ad hoc committee failed to consider that initial errors in patient diagnosis may have been responsible for the long survival times of some of the patients, and you've heard in testimony today that may indeed have been the case. There was no mention of the suspiciously low autopsy rate, eight out of 74 patients as of 1971, contrary to what one would expect if the experiments were for, for therapeutic purposes or part of a therapeutic study. And in their discussion of informed consent the ad hoc committee completely passed over, as they did many things, the requirement that patients must be told the true purposes and known side effects of the research, not only the risks. The other so-called review was conducted by a three-member panel of the American College of Radiology, which I'll refer to as ACR, who visited the University of Cincinnati a total of two times for interviews of the, their friends. I say "friends" because one of the reviews has been, one of the reviewers has been described as, quote, a long-time fishing partner, unquote, of Dr. Saenger. At the time of the so-called outside review, Dr. Saenger was a member of no less than five different committees of the ACR, including a Commission on Radiological Units, Standards, and Protection; the Committee on Research and Development in Nuclear Medicine; the Commission on Public Health; the Subcommittee on Nuclear Medicine Technology; and a Committee to Ethicacy. Dr. Saenger was by 1972 a luminary in the ACR, and was one of the organization's leading organizers and activists. What is the ACR? Well, American College of Radiology is an advocacy organization and society promoting the use of radiology against alternative modes of treatment and diagnosis, and defending its practitioners against threat of medical legal suits by patients. From the 1930s on the ACR was the leading pressure group against the extension of radiation protection standards from workers to medical patients. Acting from within and without such organizations as the Advisory Committee on X-ray and Radium Protection, the Gestault (phonetic) Commission on Radiological Protection, and the National Committee on Radiation Commission. When the NCRP finally did take up the issue of extending its recommendations to the medical industry, the ACR, in desperation, attempted to subsidize the financially struggling NCRP and move the two organizations into the same office space so as to further extend the control of the radiologists over the radiation protection community. In 1962, when Carl Morgan and, and Dr. Mueller finally succeeded in getting the radiation protection community to adopt the ten-day rule which provided protection to, for the first time to pregnant women and their children, and said you couldn't do radiological examinations within ten days after the beginning, or the end of menstruation, -- You would know, Dr. Stevenson. What was the ten-day rule? DR. STEVENSON: It was from the beginning. MR. SEA: -- from the beginning, I guess. Okay, when that was finally adopted by almost every professional organization in the world, the ACR was the lone organizational holdout, and to this day has not adopted the ten-day rule or an equivalent protection for pregnant women. In 1987 the ACR was found guilty of conspiracy with three other medical organizations in suppressing the chiropractic profession. Today the ACR still warns against reduction in the five rem limit lest radiologists and other physicians be restricted in the course of their choice in the course of therapy. Now, the leading spokespeople in this, this campaign against more stringent radiation protection guidelines, and by two of its major culprits, who were Dr. Robert Stone and Eugene Saenger, who are also major culprits in the whole human radiation experimentation, is a gentleman, the ACR, and, and these two physicians who were its spokespeople, consistently argued that physicians should be free from external regulation because physicians must be free to determine their patients' course of care as they see fit without constraint either by other professionals or by their patients. This attitude is reflected in the ACR report on the Saenger experiment which states, quote, the treatment of an individual represents a series of choices for his physicians which are based upon diagnostic findings and their best judgment, unquote. Contrary to the ACR, we believe that treatment should involve a series of choices for the patient as well, and that it should be based on the best judgment of the community of health professionals, not only that of the individual radiologist. Not surprisingly, the ACR report condoned the Saenger experiments. In fact, the review committee could not even find its own words in which to state its conclusion, and so it chose to cite the words of Dr. Saenger as its own concluding remark. Now, I have spent some time on the three reviews for one particular reason. At your July meeting Dr. Royal, one of your members, summarized the findings of these reviews by saying essentially that there were two in favor of the experiments and one against. Dr. Royal suggested that the junior faculty report, because it was the odd study out, must be wrong, and he speculated as to the reason for its, quote, bias, unquote. Dr. Royal, who it must be said is a member of the ACR, and a co-author of two Journal articles with Dr. Saenger, said that in the early '70s the Viet Nam war was going on and many campus activists were attacking anything connected with the Department of Defense. He proposed with that this anti-war sentiment was responsible for the harsh tone of the junior faculty review, and that this might constitute a conflict of interest and a reason to dismiss their report. Well, I hope you now have been convinced that it is the ACR, and the ad hoc committee reports that truly suffer from conflict of interests, and should be dismissed. The junior faculty report should be lauded. For whatever its motivations, it tells the truth. Did Dr. Saenger's experiments caused real pain and suffering? The experiments were unethical and should be universally condemned as such. They would have been unethical at any time in any place, in any context. I went to Harvard. I know it's more erudite or profound, more respectable to try to understand a thing in context, to put it into historical perspective than it is to say that the thing is wrong. We have heard the words, "context," the history, perspective, from the Advisory Committee as if they were mantras. You're an erudite bunch of people, but there will come a time, and it is fast approaching, when you, when we expect you to say simply and clearly, like the Nuremberg Tribunal, that the thing is wrong. And I would just like to add one other note. You've heard a lot about the Pitken and Fernald facilities. I did, used to live here in Cincinnati, and, and southwestern Ohio. I worked for unions both at the Fernald and Pitken plants, and there's already been some previous reference in fact. If I can answer any questions I'd enjoy the opportunity to answer the questions, and certain experiments that did occur at both of those facilities involving workers. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you. Let me, I asked a lot of detailed questions earlier, somebody had thought naively, about the notion of the, of, of, of how often patients and their families saw a treating physician. What is your reaction to this quote from the ACR review which you are familiar with and probably read? It says that the current consent-seeking procedure was reviewed. The team internist, Dr. [Blank,] I'll leave that out, the team internist interviews patients two times, at least 24 hours apart, and discusses in extensive detail the procedures that will be undertaken. This is done not only for the patient, but for members of his family when available. The specific and detailed consents for it are not presented to the patient until completion of the second interviews, modified with specificity from the basic ones prepared by the NIH. Except in the case of the three children who were treated curatively, the patients knew before being referred to the study team that they had malignant disease which no curative treatment is possible. They knew that the efforts of the study team were not offered as curative. And it goes on to say, finally, many patients expressed a desire to participate in this study and possibly help the plight of other cancer patients in the future. What is your observation of that statement based on what you know and understand on what happened? MR. SEA: Well, the first thing that has to be said is that their review of the informed consent issue was done without contacting, without speaking to any patient or family member of a patient; only by talking to the physicians involved in the study at a time when the study was under very critical review. It was receiving a lot of publicity in the local media and the national media, and which one might expect that there might be all kinds of reasons why physicians might not be entirely forthcoming, or at least should be checked in terms of what they say about what they're telling patients or have not told patients. That has to be borne in mind. The other thing that's striking about the ACR review, though, is that they seem never to have read the Nuremberg Code or any of its supporting documents, because the Nuremberg principles state clearly that the informed consent involves not only what the procedures are and the risks involved, but also the purposes of the research and the side, and the known side effects of the research. Now, while there are conflicting claims about what patients were told about the actual procedures and about the risks involved in the research, I don't believe that anybody has said that the patients were routinely informed of the purposes of the research. There have been some statements made that if they asked about it, then they would be told, but I ask you: If you have just been told that you have terminal cancer and your physician comes to you and says, "We've got, we, we are running an experiment on people in your condition, and it involves the following risks:" If that was said, would you consent to be part of this experiment? I think it is a, a logical and emotional inference that the experiment in question has the real purpose of therapy, some, some, some therapeutic intent or palliative, either one, but that the ex-, but I doubt that there would be anyone among us who would think to ask the physician, "Is this really an experiment to prove something for military purposes?" And so, who would ask? On the issue of side effects, a number of the published studies specifically say that the patients were specifically not told about known side effects so as not to bias the results of the study because some of the things they were specifically interested in were seeing what those, the effects of those side effects would be. DR. TUCKSON: Mary Ann, do you have any questions? DR. STEVENSON: (Nodded no.) DR. TUCKSON: Just so, I didn't read this section at all, so again, as another part of the ACR report I know that, that talks about, that since 1968, patients selected for the study were interviewed on succeeding days by the internist in the project. When possible, and in all cases of children, the interview included one or more members of the family who also consented to the treatment. I think one of things that would be helpful to us is if we could find any of those families where they spoke with this, with the internist involved. And actually, since it's not a matter of, of, and I guess I'm, you know, I'm, I'm saying to those that are in the audience who are familiar with these and who are advocates for the, for the constituency of, of patients, I, I would be interested in followup as we continue on here. If anyone is familiar with a Dr. Silberstein, because that's the person that is named in this ACR review who went around on two different occasions with each patient and often with members of families. At least that's what we're told, and I'd like to understand that better. DR. STEVENSON: Just a note. The staff has requested an interview with Dr. Silberstein and has been declined. DR. TUCKSON: Oh, okay. So, for the advocacy groups, please, if you can help us to understand Dr. Silberstein a little better, it would be very useful. Any, well, see, it would be, this ACR report was written in 1972 MR. SEA: It came out in '72, yes. DR. TUCKSON: Okay, and, and if it is, if it is not correct, they know that that has its own set of implications that a prestigeous organization like that would not get it right. But we'll have to, that still remains for us to determine. But on the face of it there seems to be some obvious questions, and you've helped us a great deal. Lois or Mary Ann, any other questions? DR. STEVENSON: No. I mean, I had, in reading this through, similar questions in terms of their very detailed addressing of the consent issue, and it's clear from discussions today and discussions at other meetings that patients and patients' families at least that are here to talk about this don't have the same impression of this very detailed procedure. That really needs to be rectified to us, because it, it's central to our deliberations MR. SEA: Yeah. If I could make some comments about that, if you read both the ad hoc report and the ACR report, which both deal with the issue of what they call "consent," it's an extremely bureaucratic interpretation of what "consent" means. "Consent" to them means getting forms signed; filing them appropriately; including certain legal language on the form that will protect the institution against the possibility of liability suits. It seems to, the whole notion of consents seems to have lost its real ethical import, which is to actually inform people about these things. DR. TUCKSON: Let me thank you. Let me thank all the members of the audience, all those who not only gave testimony, but who so patiently listened to testimony. Let me thank the staff. They worked very hard and very well. We really appreciate that kind of support. It would be instructive -- DR. SEA: Doctor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was asked at the end in end with a little ceremony that we did in San Francisco, if I would turn over the mic to Gwendon Plair, who would guide us in a candle-lighting ceremony for some of the radiation survivors who are here. DR. TUCKSON: As Gwendon comes forward, and I'll finish mine so that will be the last word. But I also need people also, as he comes forward, to kind of listen up here and kind of help out here. Gwendon and the, all members of the audience, the challenge still remains to get at the truth. It is, on the Cincinnati experiences, it is very important that we try to really understand the, the role of people like the, the persons that came around, and, and it's important for us to understand those files and those cases where maybe he did it, but it's also important for us to understand those times and places where he didn't. And I would hope that as people help us to try to get the truth, that they will be just as vigorous at giving us those times when he did come, and speak to someone, just as often as when they didn't, because ultimately our conclusions need to be as much grounded and unassailable, you see, by, by, by truth and reality. So if he came once, it's important to know he came once. If he came 12 times, it's important to know he came 12 times, just as if he didn't come at all. It's important for us to know that as well. So no matter where we fall, please, as we gather this information, please try to help us, everyone. For the atomic veterans and the advocates there, clearly we have, we have a lot of work to do. And within the scope possible we'll try to do that and do it well. It's impossible for me to try to summarize it any further. My brain is overloaded. I can't wait to read the Transcipt. She is wonderful. I tell you we had the service of Dorothy Bunn before. And we're happy you're here. I cannot wait to get my copy of this document so I will be able to review everything that happened, because it's just been so much. This has been overwhelming, and we want to thank all of you. Mary Ann? DR. STEVENSON: Just echoing Reed, thank you very much. As I said at the beginning of the morning, we really appreciate how mentally and physically trying this kind of thing can be for everybody. And we, we listen hard and we take it home and we feel it in your hearts the way we do. DR. TUCKSON: Lois? MS. NORRIS: I can expand no further on what has been said. It has been so well said. DR. TUCKSON: Let me turn it over to our host in Cincinnati DR. PLAIR: First of all let me say from CROCSP, the families and victims and survivors, that we really appreciate it; and also this is, as we see it, CROCSP and all the other groups, we see it as a starting point for, as a major change. I feel hope, and sincerely hope that this continues. A lot of families felt that there is some hope and some changes made, and you will have a definite part in that. So we're going to be looking for that to continue. And also, again, we want to thank you for coming, and try to join us in this dinner, because it's going to be very good and very down-home, and very good, because I know you like that down-home cooking. But what can I say? I say, I'll eat some for you. But moving on, to culminate this event with, this part of it, anyway, with, in San Francisco we were privy to a candlelight ceremony. In CROCSP we had the very first meeting and we asked San Francisco to hold it, and the candle's the the one they lit there. So it symbolizes the hope and it symbolizes those that have been the victims of radiation experiments, and that, given respect to those that have gone on. And also it is written it is better to light candles than to stumble in the darkness, and so as cliche as that is, it, it's very, very true. And so what we would like to do is, Herb and Jeanie will hold the candle there, and Herb, light it. We would like to light it and just to have 30 seconds of, of quiet in memory of those who have gone on and those who struggle, and that includes the task force here and also the radiation committee. (Whereupon, a candle was lit. A period of silence was had, after which the following occurred:) DR. PLAIR: Thank you very much. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you. DR. PLAIR: And we also want to say that this candle will go, will be going to Spokane. It's going to be a national ambassador. Again, thank you very much, and have a safe trip home. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you very much, and the meeting is adjourned. Back to Jerry. Jerry, you have to come and join us. Wait, we've got to be adjourned. Hold on. Jerry. MR. GARCIA: I hereby adjourn this meeting. DR. TUCKSON: Thank you very much. (Whereupon, at 6:30 p.m. ET the above meeting was concluded.) I certify the foregoing to be a true transcript from my notes. CSR, CP, RPR CERTIFICATION I, Dorothy I. Bunn, a Registered Professional Reporter, Certified Shorthand Reporter, and Notary Public, do hereby certify that the foregoing testimony was duly taken and reduced to writing before me at the place and time therein mentioned. I further certify that I am neither related to any of the parties by blood or marriage, nor do I have any interest in the outcome of the above matter. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my official seal, at Glenrock, Wyoming, this 28th day of October, 1994. Notary Public My Commission expires November 7, 1995.