No Subject

[mad11@health.state.ny.us]

*** Resending note of 11/22/96 15:00
To: CIP01   --ALBNYDH2

This is in response to recent posts by Mr. Perle, Mr. Muckerheide and
Dr. Gooden, reference the recent settlement in the Human Radiation
Experiment case.  More marks on the dead horse.

Evil empire?  Interesting thought.  Poor treatment of service personnel?
OK, time for someone else to weigh in on this subject.
I support Dr. Gooden in this discussion.  The "morality" of the 90's
cannot be used as a meter by which to judge the 40's and 50's.  As Dr.
Gooden accurately pointed out, physicians had much greater leeway in
those days with treatments used and research done.  The driving force,
even in Health Physics, has always been cost vs. benefit.  In the 40's
and 50's, the other idea was that if many benefit at the cost of a few,
then there is no harm (I will not say if that is morally right or wrong,
but in another time, that is the way it was).  Experiments were
performed on service personnel throughout this time period, for various
reasons:  1)  Could combat soldiers survive on the Nuclear battlefield
and what would be the effects,  2)  Could radiation treat certain
conditions that would compromise mission readiness (as an example,
one experiment was to try to alleviate a sinus condition in flyers
that could cause blackouts in flight, another experiment was to
use radiation to alleviate the risk of ear infections noted in
divers), 3)  What are the effects of radiation and fallout on a
population?  Are these questions valid?  In the late 40's, Stalin
had literally sacrificed 1000's of square miles of land (as well
as the populations thereon), to enter the arms race (and you can
bet that the families will NEVER receive even the slightest
consideration of any kind of monetary compensation.  Neither will
they for Chernobyl).  When declaring an Evil Empire, keep well enough
in mind that there exist far better examples, especially in that time
period.

Hindsight is always 20/20.  Morality changes by generation.  It is
wrong to judge (no matter what the PC crowd says), the morality
of the 40's against the morality of the 90's.  Many appologists say
that Truman was wrong for using the atomic bomb on Japan, that
casualty counts have been vastly exagerated.  In Truman's time,
if one AMERICAN life was saved by the atomic bomb, the death of
a million enemy was justified.  Those who pronounce judgement
obviously had no family members at stake, did not live at the time,
and fail to remember such names as Bataan, the Philippines, Nanking,
Shanghai, Korea, the South Pacific, etc.  Currently, the Japanese
do not recognize their own culpability for the war or the results.

These experiments were done "for the greater good."  Hazel O'Leary
and her assistants in this endeavor passed a judgement that they
were truly unfit to pass.  Was there a benefit to what happened?
Did the "victims" benefit from it?  We shall never know.  Radiation
is an easy target because of the many unknowns that still exist and the
link between radiation and detrimental effect are "well known" to the
public, while the value of radiation is often not or under-reported.

Is it criminal that these things happened? Yes.  But again, in the 40's
and 50's, compensation was based on actual harm.  The victims deserved
just compensation.  There is only one still surviving.  The beneficiaries
of this outrageous settlement (11 out of 12) have been enriched without
incurring any harm (People do die, death is a function of time).  If the
primary breadwinner was lost, then compensation should be based on his
medical costs, lost wages plus interest.  In this case, it was based on
emotion and an unwillingness to use reason.