The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments

by the Los Alamos Human Studies Project Team

are available to the public in the Los Alamos

Public Reading Room next to the Bradbury Sci-

ence Museum in Los Alamos.  Also, the Depart-

ment of Energy Office of Human Radiation Ex-

periments has information about many of the

documents on its home page on the World Wide

Web (www.ohre.doe.gov).

Robley D. Evans.  1943.  Protection of radium

dial workers and radiologists from injury by radi-

um.  The Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Toxi-

cology 25 (no. 7): 253-274.

Cyril Stanley Smith.  1961.  Plutonium metallur-

gy at Los Alamos during 1943-45.  In The Metal

Plutonium.  The University of Chicago Press.

J. J. Nickson, editor.  1945.  Report of Confer-

ence on Plutonium - May 14th and 15th.  Chica-

go Metallurgical Laboratory report issued July 15,

1945.

L. S. Hempelmann.  1946.  History of the Health

Group (A-6): March 1943 - November 1945. Los

Alamos Record Center.

Wright H. Langham, Samuel H. Bassett, Payne S.

Harris, and Robert E. Carter.  1980.  Distribution

and excretion of plutonium administered intra-

venously to man.  Health Physics 38: 1031-1060.

This article is a reprinting of the original Los

Alamos National Laboratory report, LA-1151, is-

sued in 1950.

Robert M. Fink, editor.  1950.  Biological Studies

with Polonium, Radium, and Plutonium. Mc-

Graw-Hill Book Company.

E. R. Russell and J. J. Nickson.  1951.  Distribu-

tion and excretion of plutonium.  In Industrial

Medicine on the Plutonium Project: Survey and

Collected Papers, Robert S. Stone, editor. Mc-

Graw-Hill Book Company.

S. T. Cantril.  1951.  Biological Bases for Maxi-

mum Permissible Exposures.  In Industrial Medi-

cine on the Plutonium Project: Survey and Col-

lected Papers, Robert S. Stone, editor.

McGraw-Hill Book Company.

H. Foreman, W. Moss, and W. Langham.  1960.

Plutonium accumulation from long-term occupa-

tional exposure.  Health Physics 2: 326-333.

James N. P. Lawrence.  1962.  PUQFUA, an

IBM 704 code for computing plutonium body

burdens.  Health Physics 8: 61-66.

W. H. Langham, J. N. P. Lawrence, Jean Mc-

Cleeland, and L. H. Hempelmann.  1962.  The

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory’s experience

with plutonium in man.  Health Physics 8: 753-

760.

N. R. Gevirtz, L. R. Wasserman, L. Sharney, and

D. Tendler.  1965.  Studies of plasma Fe-59 dis-

appearance: a manifestation of ineffective ery-

thropoiesis and of hemolysis.  Blood 25: 976-989.

Betsy J. Stover and Webster S. S. Jee, editors.

1972.  Radiobiology of Plutonium.  University of

Utah/Salt Lake City: The J. W. Press.

L. H. Hempelmann, W. H. Langham, C. R. Rich-

mond, and G. L. Voelz.  1973.  Manhattan Pro-

ject plutonium workers: A twenty-seven year fol-

low-up study of selected cases.  Health Physics

25: 461-479.

G. L. Voelz.  1975.  What we have learned about

plutonium from human data.  Health Physics 29:

753-760.

R. E. Rowland and Patricia W. Durbin.  1976.

Survival, causes of death, and estimated tissue

doses in a group of human beings injected with

plutonium.  In The Health Effects of Plutonium

and Radium.  Salt Lake City: The J. W. Press.

George L. Voelz.  1991.  Health considerations

for workers exposed to plutonium.  Occupational

Medicine 6: 681-694.

George L. Voelz and J. N. P. Lawrence.  1991.

A 42-y medical follow-up of Manhattan Project

plutonium workers.  Health Physics 61: 181-190.

R. J. Talbot, D. Newton, and A. J. Warner.  1993.

Metabolism of injected plutonium in two healthy

men.  Health Physics 65: 41-46.

University of California, San Francisco.  1995.

Report of the UCSF Ad Hoc Fact Finding Com-

mittee:  On World War II Human Radiation Ex-

periments. UCSF (February 1995).

Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Exper-

iments. 1995.  Final Report. U.S. Government

Printing Office (October 1995).

Office of Human Radiation Experiments, U.S.

Department of Energy Office of Environment,

Safety, and Health.  1995.  Human Radiation Ex-

periments:  The Department of Energy Roadmap

to the Story and the Records.  Department of En-

ergy (February 1995).

Office of Human Radiation Experiments, U.S.

Department of Energy Office of Environment,

Safety, and Health.  1995.  Human Radiation Ex-

periments Associated with the U.S. Department of

Energy and Its Predecessors. Department of En-

ergy (July 1995).

The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments

Number 23  1995  Los Alamos Science  

223

William D. Moss came to the Laboratory in 1953

after receiving his B.S. in biology and chemistry

from Sterling College, Kansas, in 1950.  In 1958,

he became a staff member in the Industrial Hy-

giene Group where he was responsible for devel-

oping analytical chemical procedures for analyz-

ing low concentrations of inorganic and organic

compounds and radioelements.  He was sent on

assignment to Madrid, Spain, in 1966 to assist the

Spanish Nuclear Energy Board with their evalua-

tions of plutonium contamination at the Palomares

site.  In 1975, Bill was named section leader of

the Bioanalytical and Chemistry Section, and

from 1984 through 1990, he was section leader of

the Radiochemistry Group.  His research interests

included the behavior and characterization of air-

borne radioactive aerosols in the working environ-

ment and concentrations of radioactive elements

in human tissues.  Bill has co-authored numerous

publications and has served as a member of the

Health Physics Society and the American Indus-

trial Hygiene Association.  In 1994, Bill joined

the Laboratory’s Human Studies Project Team

and was responsible for re-evaluating the human

plutonium injection experiments conducted in the

mid-forties.  Bill retired from the Laboratory in

1990 and has actively continued his research as a

Laboratory Associate.

Roger Eckhardt.  See biography at the end of

“Ionizing Radiation—It’s Everywhere!”

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