Joseph G. Hamilton Quotes
If this is to be done in humans, I feel that those concerned in the Atomic Energy Commission would be subject to considerable criticism as admittedly this would have a little of the Buchenward touch.
In 1950 a number of experiments were planned and carried out under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission where humans were exposed to radiation, often without their informed consent.
Joseph G. Hamilton, Radiation Biologist, Atomic Energy Commission, Memorandum to Dr. Shields Warren, 1950
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Breslin was criticized in a Federal report for his alarmist news coverage of the Three Mile Island nuclear mishap:
Any object that has been contaminated gradually loses its radioactive strength. It has a “half life”. This is the amount of time that it takes for the radiation in an object to lose half its strength. Different materials have different half lives. Nuclear waste from a power plant for example might have a half life of tens of thousands of years.
While this sounds like an idiotic statement, at the time very little was known by anyone about the effects of large doses of radiation. Groves had not then the benefit of the medical reports or interviews about the Japanese who had received high doses of radiation from the 2 atomic bomb attacks.
Rutherford had been the first to split the atom in 1919.
The fear of a nuclear accident is not based on the statistics or probability of death or injury. When a person chokes, it is only that person who may die. IF there is a nuclear power plant meltdown, millions of people can be injured or killed. It is the possible scale of the problem which makes most citizens fearful.
The Russians had just tested a what was almost an atomic bomb and a nuclear weapon was only months away. Eisenhower was advised to initiate an all out nuclear attack before the Russians would have a nuclear weapon with which to retaliate. If Eisenhower did not take advantage of this window, there would be no more opportunity and the Russians would also become a nuclear power. The situation was similar to that facing the Americans and Israelis with Iran in the early years of the 21st century,
Nuclear fusion is different from nuclear fission that currently powers atomic power plants. Fusion is the process the sun uses to generate all its power. Scientists understand exactly how fusion works—it’s much simpler than fission, but actually creating a way of doing it on earth has been a very difficult challenge. The National Ignition Facility has been trying to produce a fusion reaction for a number of years with no success.
Joseph Gilbert Hamilton was an American professor of Medical Physics, Experimental Medicine, General Medicine, and Experimental Radiology as well as director (1948-1957) of the Crocker Laboratory, part of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Hamilton studied the medical effects of exposure to radioactive isotopes, which included the use of unsuspecting human subjects.
