Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Bravo Medical Program: Radiation Standards, Scientific Uncertainty, and the Legacy of the Cold War, 1954 - the Present

导言：关于高剂量辐射的生物效应，人们所知的很大一部分来自于1954年建立的“布拉沃医疗计划”，该计划旨在跟踪马绍尔群岛公民因布拉沃热核试验而受到的辐射影响。尽管有很多关于布拉沃事件的描述，以及一些关于其后果的学术讨论，但还没有关于布拉沃医疗计划的全面历史研究。然而，这个项目在美国科学界是独一无二的，它努力了解核试验产生的放射性尘埃暴露的长期影响。拟议的项目涉及这一重要的历史事件，分析了50多年来马绍尔群岛公民是如何被作为有关人类辐射暴露的主要信息来源进行研究的。该计划为受辐射的人提供医疗服务，并制作了旨在确定辐射暴露的生物影响的数据，这些数据可能会应用于国际辐射安全计划。学术价值：这个项目的中心目标是讲述Bravo医学计划的故事，并分析所产生的知识如何用于制定国家和国际辐射安全标准和政策，以及在后来关于剂量重建和赔偿索赔的辩论中。该项目尤其试图回答以下问题：1)参与其中的科学家希望通过布拉沃医学计划取得什么成果，他们的期望与国际辐射安全政策和标准的制定有何联系？2)剂量是如何重建的，辐射科学的持续不确定性如何导致正在进行的关于赔偿的辩论？3)马绍尔人和国家实验室外的其他各方如何利用科学证据？4)为什么马绍尔人声称他们被当作“人的豚鼠”对待？这些都是历史问题，我们打算通过历史分析来回答。更广泛的影响：关于布拉沃的辩论还没有结束。正在进行的赔偿索赔在一定程度上依赖于“情况改变”的概念，该概念规定，如果出现新的证据表明对环境或医疗条件的了解发生了变化，就可以重新谈判赔偿。知识是如何变化的，为什么会发生变化？为什么科学信息在50多年后仍然存在争议？布拉沃医学计划还提供了一个窗口，通过它可以看到关于科学知识争辩的更广泛的问题。科学主张如何以及为什么会受到质疑？即使在许多球员已经死亡之后，争论如何能够延长很长一段时间？这些问题在各种环境和健康政策辩论中具有广泛的相关性，例如核能的安全性、全球变暖的现实和严重性以及使用转基因生物的风险和好处。该项目提供了一个机会，探讨与健康和环境政策有关的科学不确定性的广泛问题，并解决为什么在这些领域往往很难获得科学结论的问题。

Introduction: Much of what is known about the biological effects of high-dose radiation comes from the "Bravo Medical Program," established in 1954 to track the effects of the fallout exposure of citizens of the Marshall Islands from the Bravo thermonuclear test. Although there are many accounts of the Bravo event, and some scholarly discussions of its aftermath, there is no full-fledged historical study of the Bravo Medical Program. Yet, this program was unique within the boundaries of American science in its effort to understand the long-term effects of radioactive fallout exposure from a nuclear test. The proposed project addresses this important historical episode, analyzing how the citizens of the Marshall Islands were studied as a major source of information about human radiation exposure for more than 50 years. The Program provided medical care for the exposed as well as produced data that were meant to establish the biological effects of radiation exposure, and which might be applied to radiation safety programs internationally. Intellectual Merits: The central goal of this project is to tell the story of the Bravo Medical Program, and to analyze how the knowledge produced was used in the development of national and international radiation safety standards and policies, as well as in later debates over dose reconstruction and compensation claims. In particular, the project seeks to answer the following questions: 1) What did the scientists involved expect to achieve through the Bravo Medical Program and how were their expectations linked to the development of international radiation safety policies and standards? 2) How were doses reconstructed and how has the continued uncertainty of radiation science contributed to ongoing debates about compensation? 3) How did the Marshallese and other parties outside the national laboratories make use of the scientific evidence? 4) Why did the Marshallese come to claim that they had been treated like "human guinea pigs"? These are historical questions, which we plan to answer through historical analysis. Broader Impact: The Bravo debate is not over. On-going compensation claims rest in part on the concept of "changed circumstances," which provides for a renegotiation of compensation if new evidence emerges suggesting that knowledge about environmental or medical conditions have changed. How and why has the knowledge changed? Why does the scientific information remain contested more than 50 years later? The Bravo Medical Program also provides a window through which to view broader questions about the contestation of scientific knowledge. How and why do scientific claims get contested? How can contestation be extended for long periods of time, even after many of the players have died? These questions have a broad relevance in a variety of environmental and healthy policy debates such as the safety of nuclear power, the reality and severity of global warming, and the risks and benefits of use of genetically modified organisms. This project offers an opportunity to approach broad questions of scientific uncertainty in relation to health and environmental policy, and to address the question of why scientific closure has often proven so difficult to obtain in these domains.