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The cover to the Project 4.1 Final Report, "Study of Response of Human Beings Accidentally Exposed to Significant Fallout Radiation" Project 4.1 was the designation for a medical study and experimentation conducted by the United States of those residents of the Marshall Islands exposed to radioactive fallout from the 1 March 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, which had an ...
Joseph G. Hamilton was the primary researcher for the human plutonium experiments done at U.C. San Francisco from 1944 to 1947. [1] Hamilton wrote a memo in 1950 discouraging further human experiments because the AEC would be left open "to considerable criticism," since the experiments as proposed had "a little of the Buchenwald touch."
The experiments began in 1945, when Manhattan Project scientists were preparing to detonate the first atomic bomb. Radiation was known to be dangerous and the experiments were designed to ascertain the detailed effect of radiation on human health.
Acute radiation syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation sickness or radiation poisoning, is a collection of health effects that are caused by being exposed to high amounts of ionizing radiation in a short period of time. [1] Symptoms can start within an hour of exposure, and can last for several months.
Unprotected experiments in the U.S. in 1896 with an early X-ray tube (Crookes tube), when the dangers of radiation were largely unknown.[1]The history of radiation protection begins at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the realization that ionizing radiation from natural and artificial sources can have harmful effects on living organisms.
Irradiated mail is mail that has been deliberately exposed to radiation, typically in an effort to disinfect it. The most notable instance of mail irradiation in the US occurred in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks; the level of radiation chosen to kill anthrax spores was so high that it often changed the physical appearance of the mail.
Radiation poisoning, also called "radiation sickness" or a "creeping dose", is a form of damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. The term is generally used to refer to acute problems caused by a large dosage of radiation in a short period, though this also has occurred with long-term exposure to low-level radiation.
For comparison, the average background radiation in the United States is 310 mrem (3 mSv) a year. Chronic doses above 20 rem (0.2 Sv) increase the risk of cancer. Acute doses of 500 rem (5 Sv) kill half of those affected without medical treatment. [14] Chronic doses (received over a longer period of time) are less damaging than acute doses. [15]