British - HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@ix.netcom.com>]

Now it's a British issue as well. This is provided for edification.
-----------------------------

LONDON - Anti-nuclear campaigners claimed Saturday  
that Britain had been carrying out radiation experiments on 
people for nearly 40 years without properly explaining the 
risks. 
  The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), Britain's  
leading anti-nuclear pressure group, said the tests involved 
volunteers inhaling, eating or being injected with a number of 
radioactive substances. 
  Britain's defense ministry confirmed that human radiation  
experiments had been carried out but said they were all ethical. 
  Chairwoman Janet Bloomfield told a CND conference that the  
tests began in 1957 and were still going on today. CND said it 
would give full details of its allegations in a report to be 
published Sunday. 
  The defense ministry confirmed that human radiation  
experiments had been conducted at three atomic research 
establishments in the 1950s and 1960s and more recently in the 
1980s. 
  ``All studies involved volunteers. They have been subject to  
proper medical safeguards and with the full knowledge of the 
persons concerned,'' a defense ministry spokeswoman said. 
  ``Some recent studies were conducted in the 80s. None  
involved the inhalation of plutonium. Other substances 
administered were negligible,'' she said. 
  But CND researcher Eddie Goncalves disputed this.  
  ``Experiments are supposed to have been carried out on  
volunteers. But one of the issues here is to what extent these 
guinea pigs really were volunteers and to what extent they had 
the risks properly explained to them,'' Goncalves told 
reporters. 
  Bloomfield said the tests began in 1957 and involved about  
10 different radioactive substances. 
  ``The government has consistently misled parliament, the  
public and those involved about what has been done,'' she 
claimed. 

Sandy Perle
Director, Technical Operations
ICN Dosimetry Division
Office: (800) 548-5100 Ext. 2306 
Fax: (714) 668-3149

E-Mail: sandyfl@ix.netcom.com    

Homepages:

http://www.netcom.com/~sandyfl/home.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1205