DOE/EH-0457

HUMAN RADIATION STUDIES:
REMEMBERING THE EARLY YEARS

Oral History of
Dr. John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D.

Conducted December 20, 1994

United States Department of Energy
Office of Human Radiation Experiments
June 1995

CONTENTS

• Foreword
• Short Biography
• Oberlin College, Enrollment in Western Reserve Medical School
• To University of California, Berkeley to Study Physical Chemistry
• Assisting Seaborg's Research, Discovery of Uranium-233
• The Manhattan Project
• From Research to Laboratory Production of Plutonium
• Joe Hamilton's Cavalier Approach to Radiation
• Medical Treatments With Radioactive Phosphorus (32P)
• Conflict Between University of California San Francisco and Berkeley
• Reflections on Ernest Lawrence
• Heart Disease Studies
• AEC Support for Heart Disease Studies
• Heparin and Lipoprotein Research With Human Subjects
• Radiophosphorus Therapy for Polycythemia Vera
• Pre-1945 Medical Use of High-Dosage Radiation
• Attitudes Toward Radiation in AEC's Biological & Medical Program
• Establishing Livermore Laboratory's Division of Biology and Medicine (1962)
• "Jack, all we want is the truth."
• Livermore Biomedical Department's Work on Fallout and Plowshare (1963-65)
• The Controversy Over Nuclear-Armed Antiballistic Missiles (1969)
• Ethical Responsibility to Prove Technology is Safe
• Linking Radiation to Breast Cancer (1965)
• Conflict With the AEC on Low-Level Effects of Radiation (1969)
• Testifying Before Congress on Radiation Effects
• Gofman and Tamplin Ostracized
• Benefits of Radiation Therapy and Ethics
• Concern Over Low-Dosage Harm; Public Acceptance of Nuclear Energy
• Attempt to Discredit Gofman's Testimony in Johnston Versus U.S.
• The Need for Cultural Change at the Department of Energy
• AEC Responds With Sanctions to Gofman's Public Dissent (1972)
• Return to Berkeley
• Reflections on Career Decisions
• The Controversy Over Low-Dosage Harm
• Skepticism About the Value of Formal Arms-Control Agreements
• Motivation During the Manhattan Project
• Ethics and Human Radiation Experiments

• Message from John Gofman

FOREWORD

n December 1993, U.S. Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary announced her Openness Initiative. As part of this initiative, the Department of Energy undertook an effort to identify and catalog historical documents on radiation experiments that had used human subjects. The Office of Human Radiation Experiments coordinated the Department's search for records about these experiments. An enormous volume of historical records has been located. Many of these records were disorganized; often poorly cataloged, if at all; and scattered across the country in holding areas, archives, and records centers.

The Department has produced a roadmap to the large universe of pertinent information: Human Radiation Experiments: The Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and the Records (DOE/EH-0445, February 1995). The collected documents are also accessible through the Internet World Wide Web under https://ehss.energy.gov/ohre/. The passage of time, the state of existing records, and the fact that some decisionmaking processes were never documented in written form, caused the Department to consider other means to supplement the documentary record.

In September 1994, the Office of Human Radiation Experiments, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, began an oral history project to fulfill this goal. The project involved interviewing researchers and others with firsthand knowledge of either the human radiation experimentation that occurred during the Cold War or the institutional context in which such experimentation took place. The purpose of this project was to enrich the documentary record, provide missing information, and allow the researchers an opportunity to provide their perspective.

Thirty audiotaped interviews were conducted from September 1994 through January 1995. Interviewees were permitted to review the transcripts of their oral histories. Their comments were incorporated into the final version of the transcript if those comments supplemented, clarified, or corrected the contents of the interviews.

The Department of Energy is grateful to the scientists and researchers who agreed to participate in this project, many of whom were pioneers in the development of nuclear medicine.

DISCLAIMER

The opinions expressed by the interviewee are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Department neither endorses nor disagrees with such views. Moreover, the Department of Energy makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the informa-tion provided by the interviewee.