Cold War radiation testing in U.S. widespread, author claims

ST. LOUIS — Three members of Congress are demanding answers after a St. Louis scholar’s new book revealed details of secret Cold War-era U.S. government testing in which countless unsuspecting people, including many children, pregnant women and minorities, were fed, sprayed or injected with radiation and other dangerous materials.

The health ramifications of the tests are unknown. Lisa Martino taylor, an associate professor of sociology at St. Louis Community College who wrote “Behind the Fog: How the U.S. Cold War Radiological Weapons Program Exposed Innocent Americans,” acknowledged that tracing diseases like cancer to specific causes is difficult.

But three House Democrats who represent areas where testing occurred — William Lacy Clay of Missouri, Brad Sherman of California and Jim Cooper of Tennessee — said they were outraged by the revelations.

Martino-taylor used Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain previously unreleased documents, including Army records. She also reviewed already public records and published articles. She told The Associated Press that she found that a small group of researchers, aided by leading academic institutions, worked to develop radiological weapons and later “combination weapons” using radioactive materials along with chemical or biological weapons.

Her book, published in August, was a follow-up to her 2012 dissertation, which found that the government conducted secret testing of zinc cadmium sulfide in a poor area of St. Louis in the 1950s and 1960s. The book focuses on the mid 1940s to the mid-1960s.

An Army spokeswoman declined to comment, but Martino-taylor’s 2012 report on testing in St. Louis was troubling enough to trigger an Army investigation. The investigation found no evidence that the St. Louis testing posed a health threat.