aerial image of the six-story, nearly windowless form radiation lab building at Hunters Point in San Francisco, with housing under construction in the background

Shuttered Radiation Lab Poses Ongoing Health Risks for Growing Neighborhood

12.16.2024
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Our investigative series, “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.

In part 6, we detail how cavalier attitudes toward radiation exposure and an indifference to how pollution left by the Navy might affect San Franciscans have been constants officials warned of plutonium blowing in the air three-quarters of a century ago.

Two men holding large sheets of papers in front of a large shredding machine and trash cans in a black-and-white photo dated 1969 and labeled classified material

Destroyed Records, Dying Witnesses Consign San Francisco Radiation Lab to Obscurity

12.12.2024
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Our investigative series, “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.

In part 5, we trace the obscure nature of the work at the lab to the military’s culture of secrecy, explore why officials shredded millions of pages of paper records and show how an ongoing lack of official interest in acknowledging this history has frustrated local people dealing with the shipyard’s environmental legacy.

Exposed

Cold War Scientists Pushed Ethical Boundaries With Radiation Experiments

12.09.2024
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Our investigative series, “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.

In part 4, we examine the ethical implications of the lab’s use of radioactive substances on humans, when neither scientists nor study participants knew enough about the risks to offer informed consent — and how taking such gambles may have seemed more excusable in an atomic-age context than today.

colorized photos of a man lying on his back bare chested, with a man uniform peeling radiation patches off his skin

Human Radiation Studies Included Mock Combat, Skin Tests and a Plan to Inject 49ers

12.04.2024
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Our investigative series, “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.

In part 3, we show how the lab’s scientific agenda expanded from monitoring workers’ occupational exposures to using radioactive substances in mock atomic combat and clinical experiments that included topical, oral and intravenous administration of potentially harmful isotopes.

Three men in suits, two of them with military adornments, pose before a diorama of a mushroom cloud and ships at sea in a black-and-white photo

After Atomic Test Blunder, Government Authorized Study of Radiation in Humans

12.02.2024
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Our investigative series, “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.

In part 2, we examine public records that prove that exposing humans to radiation was part of the known cost of the lab’s research program, a toll accepted by top military and civilian brass at every level of the chain of command, from Washington down to the docks.

Health
A Black man stands on a hill in Hunters Point with the San Francisco skyline in the background.

A Community of Color Contends With the Navy’s Toxic Legacy

11.25.2024
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In the first of two podcast episodes of “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” reporter Rebecca Bowe traces the soil contamination plaguing a Navy shipyard back to its origins — 20th century nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific.

Environmental justice advocates, scholars and military officials describe their experiences battling over land redevelopment, and reckoning with the legacy of a radiation laboratory that sometimes used human subjects.

How a San Francisco Navy Lab Became a Hub for Human Radiation Experiments

11.25.2024
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Our investigative series, “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” details how the U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, based at a shipyard in San Francisco, exposed at least 1,073 dockworkers, military personnel, lab employees and others to radiation in technical exercises and medical experiments early in the Cold War.

Part 1, the series overview, was co-published by the Guardian. Listen to the two-episode “Exposed” podcast, which will be broadcast on KALW Public Radio. See also: Parts 2-6, laying out the origins, methodologies, ethics, documentation and public health legacy of the lab.

Exposed
a white haired man sits on a couch crying and rubbing his eyes with his fists

Why the Navy Conducted Radiation Experiments on Humans

11.25.2024
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In the second of two podcast episodes of “Exposed: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point,” reporter Rebecca Bowe lays out what we know from scattered documents and a few remaining eyewitnesses about a Cold War research program that pushed ethical boundaries in the name of national defense.

Bowe speaks with veterans who describe their experiences as guinea pigs in field decontamination exercises that yielded little useful data, and talks with colleague Chris Roberts about what the surviving record say about tests involving injection and ingestion of radioactive substances.