HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION

The Clinton administration is now desperately trying to turn public attention away from its many scandals and shortcomings by pointing its finger at an imaginary group of evil American nuclear scientists. (If you tire of Whitewatergate, read D. Brock, The American Spectator, January 1994, pp 18-30, "Living With the Clintons,'' but don't show it to your children.) The Department of Energy under Hazel O'Leary has been releasing a string of "frightful'' revelations about "horrible'' tests conducted in the 1940s and 1950s. Never mind that much of this was reported in the open scientific literature decades ago and that most of the radiation levels were so low as to be quite safe and also well within safety standards of that time. The primary transgression is that some of these tests were apparently done without informed consent of the participants - a serious transgression that should not be repeated.

If, however, the administration is really interested in human experimentation, it should read the article by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. in Conservative Review, vol. 4, December 1993, pp 10-20 available from 1307 Dolley Madison Blvd., Suite 4A, McLean, VA 22101 entitled "Malfeasance in the Search for American POW/MIAs.'' This article documents the diversion of as many as 1,000 American POWs in Vietnam (and a similar number in Korea) into the Russian program of human experimentation with chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare materials. Apparently these human specimens were needed to check racial and cultural variations in studies carried out on Russian political prisoners. Perhaps comrade Yeltsin can provide us with copies of informed consent forms signed by these American GIs before they willingly died as sacrifices for Mother Russia.