Dr. Stafford was the head of the medical team on Manhattan Project in 1944.
This book was written by Eileen Welsome which described America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War.
Dr. Stafford was the head of the medical team on Manhattan Project in 1944.
PLUTONIUM INJECTIONS IN THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
A total of 18 individuals were injected with plutonium from April 10, 1945 to July 18, 1947 for the Manhattan project. Doses that were used ranged from 95 to 5,900 nanocuries. The plutonium was injected into the blood of the 18 individuals without their knowledge by the federal government scientists. 4.7 micrograms of plutonium were injected into Ebb Cade, an unwilling participant in the experiment. Moreover, Albert Stevens was diagnosed inaccurately for stomach cancer. In 1945, he was injected with Pu-238 and Pu-239 by doctor Dr. Joseph Gilbert Hamilton, who was a Manhattan Project doctor in charge of human experiments in California. Albert Stevens was able to live for only another 20 years after being injected with plutonium. Albert Stevens and his relatives were unaware of the misdiagnosis, and that Albert did not have cancer.
Rosemary Lane, the head nurse of the Oak Ridge Hospital during the Manhattan Project, described how Ebb Cade had a fracture due to a car accident. The doctor felt that a radiation procedure would help heal the fractures. Stafford Warren was the head of the medical team during the Manhattan Project in 1944. From 1945-1947, Stafford and his medical team injected radioactive elements, which included polonium, plutonium, and uranium into patients throughout the country. Eighteen patients were injected with plutonium, six with uranium, and five with polonium. These experiments occurred in hospitals (Manhattan Project-related) in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, California.
The purpose of the research was to understand how long radioactive material stayed in the body. The plutonium injections from 1945-1947 occurred in Manhattan District Hospital at Oak Ridge, the University of California San Francisco, Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, and the University of Chicago. No consent forms were signed, and the patients were unaware of the contents of the injections.
Sources
Welsome, Eileen. “Plutonium Files: How the U.S. Secretly Fed Radioactivity to Thousands of Americans.” Democracy Now!, May 5, 2004 www.democracynow.org/2004/5/5/plutonium_files_how_the_u_s.
Eckhardt, Roger, and William Moss. “The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments.” Los Alamos Science, no. 23, 1995, pp. 178–233.
Martensen, Robert. Review of The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 76, no. 3 (2002): 637-638. doi:10.1353/bhm.2002.0136.
Kevles, Daniel J. The New York Times, The New York Times, archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/10/31/reviews/991031.31kevlest.html. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
WPI, Environmental Information Services -- Shawn Denny. “Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report.” EHSS Welcome, ehss.energy.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap5_2.html. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
“Human Radiation Experiments.” Nuclear Museum, 11 July 2017, ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/human-radiation-experiments/.