Human Experimentation

Human Experimentation,
Plutonium, and
Colonel Stafford Warren

In 1953 the Nuremberg Code was developed as a result of atrocities committed in the guise of "medical research" during the second world war. In 1994 Eileen Welsome, a reporter for the Albuquerque Tribune, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, for her investigative reporting of a dark episode in American History relating to secret medical experiments. Her subsequent book "The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments In The Cold War" published by the Dial Press in 1999 is a fascinating, as well as riveting, narrative regarding this American experience.

During the 1940s a leading participant in the performing of potentially lethal medical research on unsuspecting military personnel and hospitalized patients was Army Colonel Stafford Warren, a Professor of Radiology at the University of Rochester (New York) School of Medicine and Dentistry and Chief of the Manhattan Project Medical Section.

Col. Warren is shown to the right in the photograph above as he boards the hospital ship USS Haven in 1946 en route to Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll.

Welsome's delving into the persona of Stafford Warren has allowed us to see him as an "opportunist" having "no ethical qualms" whose "bravado masked a cunning intelligence." Her diligence and persistence resulted in a confrontation with the United States Department of Energy in 1993. Following the revelation of this shocking factual information regarding human experimentation on unsuspecting hospital patients in America it then became evident that Dr. Shiro Ishii (Japanese Unit 731), Dr. Fukujiro Ishiyama (Kyushu University Imperial Hospital), Dr. Sigmund Rasher (Dachau Concentration Camp) and Dr. Josef Mengele (Auschwitz Concentration Camp) had at least one American medical colleague to share in their infamy in performing experimentation on captive human subjects.

Joseph Mengele

Shiro Ishii

Stafford Warren, in his capacities as a U.S. medical officer (radiologist) and medical faculty member at the University of Rochester appears to have had primary responsibility for the now infamous plutonium injections performed on innocent patients at Strong Memorial Hospital (Teaching Hospital of the University of Rochester) in 1945 along with Colonel Hymer Friedell (also a M.D.). A top secret and constantly guarded clandestine facility, the "Manhattan Annex" was constructed across the street from the University of Rochester Medical School. This endeavor was connected by a tunnel to the medical school itself. The facility was destroyed after WWII , and its activities were actively kept hidden from the public until over a half-century later. By 1977 only one survivor, Jeanne Connell remained, to tell the tale. That same year Connell, and the heirs of the other human subjects, each received $400,000 from the U.S. government with an official apology (O'Neill et al., Betrayal of Trust, People Magazine, May 5, 1997).

The Strong Memorial Hospital and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry's web site notes that in March 1943 President Valentine, of Strong Memorial Hospital, summoned Dr. Stafford Warren to a luncheon conference with Major General Leslie Groves and Colonel J. C. Marshall. At this meeting it was decided that Dr. Warren would be responsible for the medical care and protection, against health hazards of all individuals who were to be working on the Manhattan Project for the development of the atomic bomb.

The need for knowledge regarding the effects of plutonium on humans was information important to the needs of the United States during the 1940s. This was, however, no justification to commit crimes against humanity in order to gain this knowledge as many individuals would have willingly volunteered for such studies if they has been provided with informed consent and responsible overview.

In fact, this exact precedent had been established in 1900 when the United States Army Yellow Fever Commission, in Havana, Cuba, asked for volunteers to be bitten by mosquitoes laden with yellow fever. Full disclosure of risk, including possible death, was provided to all of these volunteers. Some of the first to step forward were physicians Jesse Lazear and James Carroll. Volunteer nurse Clara Louise Maass died from the effects of this transmitted disease. This situation was groundbreaking in establishing the basis of informed consent by a conscientious approach to human experimentation carried out by ethical health professionals. In contradistinction to the valiant yellow fever volunteers it must be pointed out that none of the physicians involved in plutonium experimentation ever used themselves as test subjects.

One of the great moments of the Clinton administration were the actions of Secretary of the Department of Energy, Hazel O'Leary, and her official response upon learning about "America's Nuclear Shame" (term coined by CNN's Bernard Shaw). Her integrity and leadership did not permit the government to resort to the, not infrequently practiced, Washington protocol of denial, character assassination, "cover-up" and typically associated "damage control."

In addition to wearing his cap as a Manhattan Project Officer Colonel Stafford Warren was, at the same time, also involved in the development of radiographic media at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. He, and his associates Strain and Plati, developed the myelographic oil-ester Pantopaque^® for which they received U.S. Patent 2,348,231 which was issued on May 9, 1944. The Parisian Report chronicles the tale of this saga and the Burton Report documents the relationship of Pantopaque^® to the neuropathologic entity "adhesive arachnoiditis." In one of medicines great mysteries Pantopaque^®, which was never shown to be "safe", was initially introduced for use in small amounts (1-2cc) for locating spinal tumors. It next (mysteriously) appeared on the world scene for high volume (12-15cc), routine use, in diagnosing disc herniations.

A number of clinicians have published on the dangers of oil myelography. In 1942 Van Wagenen (a neurosurgical colleague of Warrens, at the University of Rochester) identified Pantopaque^® as causing chemical meningitis in 30 patients where "space-displacing masses within the spinal canal were suspected." Despite this important information Pantopaque^® was subsequently distributed to the United States military by Warren, under circumstances inconsistent with American Medical Association principles as well as Food and Drug Administration requirements.

Only minimal effort has ever been directed to documenting the numbers of military personnel who became disabled following this oil myelography and subsequent spinal surgery during the period 1940-1985. How many military veterans experienced a Pantopaque^®myelogram during this period is simply not known but, there are clearly many thousands of veterans whose lives were destroyed by this experience.

Should the United States Veteran's Administration ever initiate a meaningful attempt to identify (and also assist such suffers) it would most certainly open another important chapter of American medical history. Because we have not yet endeavored to learn from this appalling experience in medical care and poor science many unfortunate patients continue to suffer from similar problems.