Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 4, 1994 TAG: 9401040184
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"We're committed to getting to the bottom of this," said Mark Gearan, President Clinton's communications director.
Since Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary made an issue of the radiation experimentation and recently ordered a telephone hot line to take calls from people who believe they may have been victims, the Energy Department has received tens of thousands of calls.
"Our lines are swamped," said Mary Ann Freeman, a department spokeswoman. Telephone company officials estimated that as many as 10,000 calls a day have been placed to the toll-free number, (800) 493-2998, but the heavy volume has prevented most from connecting.
Gearan chastised the Reagan and Bush administrations for not pursuing a 1986 congressional report that suggested widespread radiation experimentation involving humans over several decades beginning in the 1940s. "Nothing was followed up," he said.
Senior White House officials met with representatives of a half-dozen departments and agencies, including the Energy and Defense departments, to map out procedures for collecting tens of thousands of documents they hope will shed light on the questionable experiments. Many are in private archives, federal research labs and with former government contractors.
Among the tests revealed so far are cases where humans were injected with highly radioactive plutonium and where retarded teen-agers at a state institution in Massachusetts were fed radioactive milk with their breakfast cereal in the 1940s and early '50s.
Gearan said it was too early to tell how many people might have been affected by the tests. He said the administration was ready to work with Congress on a compensation program for those who "were wronged" by government-sanctioned tests.
Keywords:
INFOLINE
by CNB