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Pmlc N (Snc Xmjm Ms 707571 Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations P.O. Box E Oak Ridge,Tennessee 37830 BBCSIM~LESEBvICsS pmlc n (snc XmJm mS. 626-3063 Cm61 5576-3063 9600 6264573 CtMM, 614-576-0S73 TEmPEmE VeBDIcaCpIm m. FTS. 626-lOS8 88 1057 C~RQL 615.57~10~s m:September 22, 1981 Wayne Range, Asst.to Mgr. for . Public Information BE, mDIV. DOE/ORO Ray Marble, Office of Congressional,Intergovernmental, r and Public Affairs, DOE/Headquarters 252-2773 M: Forre s tal Building (rn. ) mm08 I#cCA!noa _- HOW BY HOWARD L. RQSENBERG I11ents and consultations with leadi% medical and scientific authorities relreal “sea of radiation.’’ that these treatments ellollred into mnknown to Mary Sue Sexton, her something quite different: son Dwayne was serving as part of a e The Oak Ridge Institute, where government experiment: He was help- ing to find the parameters of the radia- tion sickness syndrome-precisely how large a dose it would take to cause a experiments on animals and humans. ‘person to lose his appetite, get nauseous B) Leading authorities on radiation and vomit. protection, and even rlie AEC ifseljin its review of these experiments, judged that the treatnlellts were Of little, if any, benefit to the patients. The lllall who Oversaw the experimcnts, hO\\’- . ever, is today one of the government’s chief experts on the Today Oak Ridge’s broad, main avenues are still lined effectsof radiyt‘< ion. with Army barracks, converted and refurbished as apart- o The government doctors administering the treatments ment buildings. The “downtown” area is a modern shopping knew of other therapy techniques-using either different center. The denizens of the “Energy Capital” are a curious types of radiation exposure or chemotherapy-that were mu of rural-tired hill people and scientists and technicians superior. At least in Dwayne Sexton’s case, the government from around the world. One out of every 35 Oak Ridgers scientists at Oak Ridge initially withheld these better- holds a Ph.D. degree-one of the highest per capita ratios in established cancer treatments. the nation. 1 0 The clinic facilities were “substandard” according to the Clarence Lushbaugh arrived in 1963 to head the AEC government itself, 2nd the AEC eventually forced its own clinic’s ominously titled “Applied Radiation Biolog)) Divi- clinic to close down. sion.” A short, balding man with a combative personality, o Patients did not offer their fidy informed consent to be Lushbaugh likes to say he “grew up in the gutters” of Cincin- part of some experiments. nati, Ohio, where his name, And some patients, like Clarence, “was a fighting Dwayne Sexton, were sub- name-you had to protect a jected to several different name like Clarence.” Most types of experiments. of his friends now call him e Though the treatments “Lush,” but the feisty atti- were administered as can- tude of his youth has not cer therapy, one primary inellowed much in G5 years. purpose was to obtain data The nameplate behind for the United States’ space Lushbaugh’s desk informs ram on human reac- visitors that he is the HSOBIC-Head-Son-Of- a-Bitch-In-Charge. Educated at the Univer- sity of Chicago, where he NASA, the National Aero- received his bachelor’s de- nautics and Space Adminis- gree, a P1i.D. in pathology tration, urgently needed and an M.B. in medicine, data on human sensitivity to Lushbaugh began his career radiation, and the cancer in 1S49 as a pathologist in patients who came through Los Alanios, New Mex- the doors of the Oak Ridge ico-another “atomic city.” Institute of Nuclear Studies He doubled as the govern- became the human guinea ment town’s coroner. In pigs who provided th; information. 1963, Lushbaugh moved to rural Tennessee and became a Animals had been the first to breach the boundaries of member of the staff of the Oak Ridge Institute. space. Dogs and chimpanzees and monkeys were metamor- “In Eos Alamos,” he explains, “we had plenly of radioiso- phosed into avian creatures, hurtling through the strat- topes and plenty of machinery, but we didn’t have a wllole lot osphere atop rockets. Down below, scientists were wrestling of sick people because it was a rather young population.” with unanswered questions about how human beings would Oak Ridge offered the same access to radioisotopes plus a stand up to the effects of radiation. Nausea and vomiting large group of Tennesseans who were gratefui for frce medic- caused by radiation sickness were possibly manageable ail- al attention at the AEC clinic. ments on the ground. But to an astronaut wearing an oxygen The Qak Ridge Institute had a mandate from the Atomic mask, they could prove fatal. Energy Commission-which was then the governnlent agen- Hard data on human radiosensitivity was vital to NASA. cy charged with promoting nuclear energy-lo conduct re- But who would volunteer to be exposed to potentially lethal search into the “beneficial applications of radiation.” Some doses of radiation? In Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a pathologist significant achievements did come out of Oak Ridge’s clinic, at the AEC‘s clinic, Clarence Lushbaugh,-- agrecd to search including the development of a cobalt 60 (C-60) telelherapy for some of the answers NASA wanted. machine, which served as a prototype for others now used in Oak Ridge is called the “Energy cancer therapy at hospitals across the counliy. Capital ofthe World” nowadavs. It Lushbaugh was teamed with eminent hcmatologist Gould Ius& to be known as the “A<omic Andrcws. Lushbaugh’s star was rising. Andrews “was prob- City.” This was the town created by Uncle Sam to produce ably the world-renowned expert in takirig care of peisons fuel for the Manhattan Project’s A-bombs during World War with radiation injurics,” Lushbaugh says modestly, “and I 11. Hidden in hollows amid rolling hills of black oak, massive was the world-renowned expert at trying to figure out what factories for producing bomb-grade uranium rose up within a went wrong at the autopsy table.” perirnetcr of total military security. The limestone ridges If someonc was acutely irradiated in an accident, no malter along the snaking Clinch River offered natural protection when or where, Andrcws was called in to give ineckal atten- from air attack. Power from the Tennessee Valley Authority tion. His hunched figure was unmistakable-he was afflicted was in plentiful supply. with extreme curvature of the spine. Andrcws was a compas- SEPT./OCT. 1981 1022219 32 .., ‘* MOTHER JONES -2._ sinnclte and competent attendant to hi. lients, but whenev- at Sloan-Kettering UP ‘ an X-ray machine to spray their patients, but the 0, Ridgers thought that radiation- cr~~ his niedical ministrations failed, it MSLushbaugh’s turn. ~ushbaughdid the autopsies. emitting isotopes like C-60and cesium 137 (Ce-137) would Shortly after his arrival in Oak Ridge, Lushbaugh won a be more flexible than a bulky machine. NASA dontract to conduct a retrospective analysis of the Lushbaugh explains it this way: “See, with an X-ray tube, effects of radiation: a hunt for the point at which the syn- you would put the person on the floor in the fetal position, drome symptoms appear. He looked for clues in the medical with his knees drawn up, and you’d zap him from the right charts of cancer patients who had been treated with side with an X-ray machine and then you’d flip him over and , radiotherapy. By the end of 1964, Lushbaugh had compiled irradiate him from the other side.”The METBI facility was a tailed notes on reactions in are extremely high’doses- 500-CUfflF, CESIOM- (37 an ordinary the systematic manner of a rREATMEt4r SOURCES (61 chesl X-ray is research scientist. A “pro- \A about one-tenth of a rad- spective” study was ’ but the.exposures were and needed. Oak Ridge was the are considered therapeutic ideal place for the study and in treating some cancers. Lushbaugh was the ideal But as we will see in choice to conduct it. By Dwayne Sexton’s case and care f u I 1y mo nit o r iii g p a- those of the other 8s pa- tients during and after tients in these experiments, radiotherapy at the clinic, the massive radiation doses Lushbaugh and his associ- were not only part of a ates could be on the lookout treatment plan, but also a for syndrome symptoms way of gathering data €or and could correlate them the space progran. with the exact dose of radia- The treatment of leuke- tion received. mia patients in METE31 be- gan as soon as the facility was operational. Gould -1 -1 Andrews directed the clh- In 1960, the Oak Ridge clin- ical hematology staff. L~sh- ic had begun operating a baugh monitored the can- therapy chambNer known as L cer patients for sians of the ME-fBI-the Medium-Exposure-Rate Total-Body ha- syndrome. Many aspects of the syndrome we$ already diator. Built in a special wing of the tiny clinic, METBI was known even then. The government’s handbook for the holo- I designed for experiments testing spray irradiation as a treat- caust, The Effects of Nuclear Weapom, reports that “for ment for blood cancers. It was part of the Atomic Energy doses between 200 and 1,ooO rads the probability of sumival 1 :1 Commission’s effort to use its nuclear wares to find those is good at the lower end o€the range, but poor at lhe upper t “beneficial applications of radiation.” end. The initial syniptonls are similar to those common in ! Prior to World War 11, researchers at the Memorial Sloan- radiation sickness .
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