16. Impoverished Cancer Patients Were “Treated” With High-Level Radiation
At the height of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear fallout was imminent, and there was a question of whether the idea of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) would prevent the use of nuclear weapons by the Soviets, the government needed to understand how much radiation a human body could sustain. Rather than traveling to another country, like Guatemala or Puerto Rico, to perform unethical medical experiments, the government decided to use a vulnerable population in the United States: poor African Americans who have cancer.
Dr. Eugene Saenger, who was sponsored by the Pentagon to carry out the experiments at the University of Cincinnati, subjected the patients to whole-body radiation equal to 20,000 chest X-rays over the course of one hour. Nevertheless, at the time, whole-body radiation was known to have no positive effects on the types of cancer being “treated.” Many of the patients died from radiation poisoning rather than cancer.
In the 1990s, a new congressional investigation was opened up regarding the experiments. Dr. Saenger and his attorney insisted that the research was validly carried out for cancer treatment.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“1931: Cornelius Rhoades, MD.” Alliance for Human Research Protection.
“Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study.” Wikipedia.
Released CIA Documents from Operation Midnight Climax
“Document Friday: Project ARTICHOKE, or the CIA Attempt to Create an Unwitting Assassin Through Hypnosis,” by Nate Jones. Unredacted. April 23, 2010.
“Project Artichoke.” Wikipedia.