IODINE 131 EXPERIMENTS

In 1955, the Arctic Aeromedical Lab (AAL) located in Ladd Airforce Base outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, began their Iodine 131 Thyroid Function Study. The study was to test a human’s ability to withstand cold temperatures and changes in thyroid function and structure. The subjects: 100 Native Americans who lived in Alaska. Given permission from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which had just approved the use of iodine in human experimentation, the AAL gave 120 subjects in total (19 of which were military personnel), a capsule that contained Iodine 131, a radioactive substance. They would then take samples of blood, saliva, and urine to track thyroid function. At the end of the experiment, it was shown that there was no correlation between the two, and the AAL left Fairbanks.

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The adults that were used in this experiment were a part of Native American communities that spoke little to no English, so it is a high possibility that they were fed this radiation without understanding what was happening. When a government committee in the late 1990s was put together to later investigate what the AAL did, no proper documentation of consent was ever found, nor was any documentation showing that the people even knew what they were a part of. No follow-up examinations or treatment was ever conducted. Instead, these communities were left to deal with the repercussions of the American scientists.
 

Citations

Cimons, Marlene. “Clinton Apologizes for Radiation Test: Experiment: Cabinet will study compensation for some victims and their families. About 4,000 secret studies through 1974 were disclosed.” Los Angeles Times. 04 October 1995.

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Joseph Hamilton with Radioactive Sodium Experiment, 1939. The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. (2017).

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Lanzarotta, Tess. “Ethics in retrospect: Biomedical research, colonial violence, and Inupiat sovereignty in the Alaskan Arctic.” Social Studies of Science, Vol. 50(5) 778-801. 2020.

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Thompson, Robin. (2021). Subject #15, Joe Aveoganna from Wainwright (1892-1969). My great-grandfather [Image]. Anchorage Press.

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Thompson, Robin. (2021). The Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory’s Thyroid Function Study [Image]. Anchorage Press.

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Thompson, Robin. “Sins of the Past: The Iodine 131 Experiments in Alaska.” Achorage Press.  17 August 2021.