THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 16, 1995 TAG: 9502160335
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
A Medical College of Virginia scientist sought to avoid negative publicity over dog research when he requested a federal stamp of secrecy in the early 1950s for radiation and burn studies, federal records show.
As part of a national inquiry, the federal Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments is looking at a secrecy classification approved for radiation and burn testing conducted at MCV during the Cold War era.
The panel released newly unearthed documents Tuesday, including a letter written in 1951 by Dr. Everett I. Evans, who directed MCV's burn studies, complaining about a Richmond newspaper reporter.
``I really fear that one day this reporter will elbow his way into the animal laboratory and cause us a great deal of harm, not only to the school but to the whole project,'' Evans wrote to an official in the Army's Office of the Surgeon General.
A ``restricted'' classification was approved, but it's unclear how it was applied.
Dr. Eugene P. Trani, Virginia Commonwealth University president, pointed out Tuesday that reports on radiating of dogs were published at the time in four scientific journals. Trani repeatedly has said MCV's Cold War-era tests weren't secret.
``We can't use 1995 standards for what they did in 1951,'' the VCU president said when asked about Evans' actions. MCV is a part of VCU.
The federal panel was created to study the ethical scope of radiation experiments involving humans in the United States during the Cold War era, and it has dug up cases where records were classified to avoid bad press.
Its investigators found that insurance and public-relations officials of the Atomic Energy Commission in the late 1940s routinely recommended that records of human experiments be stamped ``top secret'' to protect the government from liability and embarrassment.
In addition, the committee has found instances where secrecy was not complete, and data about classified studies were published in scientific journals. by CNB