Radiation, Health and Politics in America, 1920-1990

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With the explosion of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the entire world became aware of what had heretofore been known only to a few: the enormous energy which lay dormant in the atom. The use of this power, both militarily and for civilian purposes, became a major goal in the postwar era. Yet the radiation which atomic power entailed posed serious problems which scientists had to study. How they undertook this research in the United States is the subject of this research. Dr. Whittemore is analyzing the interaction of science, law and ethics in research on radiation exposure limits for human beings. It is the establishment of such standards that one finds the most sophisticated and complex mixture of scientific, ethical and legal issues. This study focuses on a history of radiation standards in the United States from the founding of the Advisory Committee on X-Ray and Radium Protection in 1928 to the disbanding of the Federal Radiation Council in 1970, when its functions were transferred to the Environmental Protection Agency and then on to the present. Dr. Whittemore was Senior Policy and Research Analyst for the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. This Committee, appointed by President Clinton in 1994, uncovered and collected many of the documents which make possible a postwar history into classified government research in this area. The Committee also conducted a number of oral history interviews with scientists who have been active in the field. It is this collection of documents and interviews that Dr. Whittemore will use in his research.