a June 19, 54 letter from Hamilton to Claus (and routed to Dunham, Bugher, and the
Hamilton file as well) reports that L. Van Middleworth stumbled onto something
potentially touchy. He found radioactive iodine in beef thyroids in Memphis, and had
asked Hamilton about beef thyroids in San Francisco. Hamiltontried to divert his
attention (by claiming that it must have been from contamination from Oak Ridge).
Middleworth went ahead and contacted beef companies in San Francisco and found
radioactive iodine in their beef thyroids. Hamilton then got some himself, ina
roundabout wayso as notto attract attention, ostensibly for the further development of
the isolation of non-radioactive iodine from the thyroid tissue. This was not really the
truth, although it sort of was, since they were doing this sort of work for astatine
experiments. Hamilton suggested that the animals were probably fed hay andalfalfa cut
during 1953-54.
Sunshine and Gabriel code names werenotclassified, nor were the existence and purpose
of the collection of samples, including human bones;buttheresults of the sr90 analyses
and the comprehensive report were classified.
6 Nov, 56: a letter from Berlin to Hamilton contains a hand-written note saying "letter
referred to destroyed"; a letter from Dunham (samedate), however, refers to Hamilton's
Nov1 letter, with comments on the plutonium problem in Wright Langham's work.
Nathaniel Berlin and Gordon Dunningare also mentioned.
A letter to C.B. Marquand, Director, Chemical Corps Advisory Council: Hamilton refers
to Dugwayandto the tests in the West of a similar nature, which will be continued.
Carton 28
Folder 40: a Feb 20, 1943 letter to Stone from Hamilton, in response to Stone's
questions, described planned tracer studies: "...a procedure has been devised by whichit
is anticipated that both short lived and long lived active deposits arising from the slow
neutron fusion of uranium can be suspended in the air andtheir distribution in the body
determined following inhalation of these substances. In addition,it is planned to evaluate
both the distribution and radiation effects of the raw fission mixture containing the long
lifematerial upon human leukemia patients.”
Jul 13, 1944: Stafford Warren wrote to Hamilton; he wanted Hamilton to accept the
responsibility for directing the medical program at UC,to be the person who reports
directly to the Area Engineer. Warren suggested that Hamilton could get Earl Miller to
help.
Folder 41, Jan 30, 45: Stone wrote Hamilton with respect to human subjects injected
with iodine. Hamilton was to do tests with Dr. Soley, withouttelling Soley the reasons
for the studies being doneat this time.
June 5, 45: Hamilton sent Fidler a proposed program for July 1, 45 to June 30, 46,
including, in section 1b, "Plutonium studies: ingestion experiments with various
compounds(including tracer studies on human subjects using 48)". It was approved by:
C.A. Thomas on 8/3/45; A.H. Compton on 8/8/45; and Edgar J. Murphyofthe U.S.
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Archives and Records Office
Human Radiation Experiments Search and Retrieval Project
Anna Berge Research Notes
Electronic Document Title: Bancroft/EOL
April 4, 1994
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