In 1948, the Atomic Energy Commission—the predecessor to the Department of Energy—declassified a study on gamma radiation’s effects on the blood of workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a key site in the development of the atomic bomb. But the agency’s insurance branch moved to block its release. The reasoning? It could shatter employee morale and “place a powerful weapon in the hands” of attorneys, who might file a lawsuit on behalf of sick workers. By then the government had also conducted experiments in hospitals—including one near its nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee—that intentionally exposed patients to radiation without their knowledge.
I wasn’t ready for that bit about what happened to the Japanese scientists, and gobsmacked by how long they were kept alive and their suffering recorded.
I hope they lost consciousness pretty quickly otherwise that must be a literal hell.
Oh sweet summer child. They didn’t lose consciousness. They were seen as a rare research opportunity because they were so irradiated. They were kept alive and conscious by Doctors despite their plees to be killed because the data was too valuable. Their families begged for them to be allowed to die but no one listened. Those workers experienced every second of a slow, agonizing, and humiliating death so we could gain a little more data.
The truth is actually the opposite. If you read up on it, with Ouchi, he and his family wanted him to live, even when he was unconscious his family requested for the hospital to keep him alive. His family eventually requested a do not resuscitate order, and then he passed away 2 days later, on the 21st of December, with his wife hoping he’d make it to the 1st of January.
The ‘good’ news is that criticality incidents like this aren’t at risk of nuclear explosion or meltdown. The results are horrifying, but limited to the people in the immediate vicinity.
Wait, when was that?
2011: https://www.science.org/content/article/near-disaster-federal-nuclear-weapons-laboratory-takes-hidden-toll-america-s-arsenal
The scariest part is this lack of safety culture spans multiple national labs.
jesus fucking christ
i mean the security code for US nuclear weapons was 00000000 for a very long time
https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/cybersecurity/launch-code-for-us-nuclear-arsenal-was-00000000-until-1977/ar-AA1vxdKa
that article was wild. thanks for sharing
I wasn’t ready for that bit about what happened to the Japanese scientists, and gobsmacked by how long they were kept alive and their suffering recorded.
I hope they lost consciousness pretty quickly otherwise that must be a literal hell.
Oh sweet summer child. They didn’t lose consciousness. They were seen as a rare research opportunity because they were so irradiated. They were kept alive and conscious by Doctors despite their plees to be killed because the data was too valuable. Their families begged for them to be allowed to die but no one listened. Those workers experienced every second of a slow, agonizing, and humiliating death so we could gain a little more data.
The truth is actually the opposite. If you read up on it, with Ouchi, he and his family wanted him to live, even when he was unconscious his family requested for the hospital to keep him alive. His family eventually requested a do not resuscitate order, and then he passed away 2 days later, on the 21st of December, with his wife hoping he’d make it to the 1st of January.
No way. His name was Ouchi?
I’ll leave that dad joke alone out of respect, but I’ll have you know, it took effort.
Ōchi, not Auchi.
that’s some Unit 731 type shit
That whole article is fucking terrifying.
The ‘good’ news is that criticality incidents like this aren’t at risk of nuclear explosion or meltdown. The results are horrifying, but limited to the people in the immediate vicinity.