X-Message-Number: 7211
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 1996 11:52:01 +0100
From: John de Rivaz <>
Subject: Plutonium
This report about government plutonium experiments on live subjects has
interest for cryonicists.
At the time the plutonium was injected, it was an experiment - the knowledge
we have today was not as widespread and those that beleived what we now know
to be true were considered as controversial people. The same situation exists
with cryonics - people are being subjected to compulsory autopsy, which
reduces or even eliminates the chances of cryonics working for them. There is
knowledge today that cryonics will work, but it is not provable by
experiment. As cryonics is only completed in the future when revivals take
place (or are tried but fail to be successful) that experiment is not
completed.
If the people who injected the plutonium, and those who gave the orders for
it to be done, can be sucessfully punished, either by law or otherwise (eg
media exposure), then it should be good for the cryonics movement. "Obeying
orders" or "I am innocent because I did it as a government employee" should
not be acceptable. If they are accepted by lawyers, these reasons or excuses
are unlikely to be accepted by ordinary sensible people.
Forwarded from Terra-Libra email list:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
-----------------------------------------
NEWS FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100
Washington DC 20037
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For release: November 21, 1996
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For additional information:
Bill Winter, Director of Communications
(202) 333-0008 Ext. 226
Internet:
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Secret government medical experiments
warrant jail, not payoffs, say Libertarians
WASHINGTON, DC -- Jail time, not payoffs -- that's the way to
deal with 30 years of secret, gruesome government medical experiments,
the Libertarian Party said today.
"The government should not be able to buy its way out of
responsibility by paying off victims with taxpayers' money," said Steve
Dasbach, chairman of America's third-largest political party. "Instead,
attempted murder charges should be filed against the politicians who
approved secret radioactivity, chemical, and biological experiments on
innocent Americans."
Dasbach's comments came after Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary
announced this week that the government would pay $4.8 million to the
families of 12 human "guinea pigs" who were injected with plutonium and
uranium -- without their knowledge or consent -- during secret
government experiments in the 1940s.
A better response, said Dasbach, would be to bring to justice
the people responsible for such experiments.
"Politicians, bureaucrats, and government employees should be
held to the same standard as any other American," he said. "If an
average citizen, for example, secretly injected people with highly
radioactive Plutonium 239, he would be in jail facing murder charges.
Instead, the government is spending $4.8 million of our money to try to
buy a clean conscience."
The use of taxpayers' money for the payoff is especially
reprehensible, said Dasbach.
"If compensation is warranted, it should be in the form of
victim restitution from the specific individuals responsible for the
crimes," he said. "Taxpayers shouldn't be further punished for the
crimes of politicians."
After all, noted Dasbach, American citizens have been
victimized ever since the secret experiments started in 1940.
"First, thousands of individuals were the subjects of horrific
government experiments for more than three decades," he said. "Then,
Americans were kept in the dark for another two decades while the
government tried desperately to cover up its crimes. Now, we're being
taxed to pay off the victims of these ghoulish experiments -- while the
politicians and bureaucrats who committed these crimes remain at
large."
In announcing the settlement, O'Leary said the government was
"grateful" to the victims for "the tough lessons they have taught us
about trust, responsibility, and accountability between the government
and the people."
"The real lesson this case teaches is: Government can't be
trusted," countered Dasbach. "If politicians have power over our lives,
they will abuse it. And the more power we give politicians, the more
they abuse it. If nothing else, this tragic case should end the myth
that such atrocities can't happen in America."
Despite the $4.8 million payoff, lawsuits continue to pile up
from as many as 20,000 other individuals who are demanding compensation
by the government for biochemical experiments conducted in the 1940s,
'50s, and '60s, according to news reports.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg, noted Dasbach.
A Congressional subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC on
September 28, 1994 revealed that up to 500,000 Americans were
endangered by secret defense-related tests between 1940 and 1974 --
including covert experiments with radioactive materials, mustard gas,
LSD, and biological agents. For example, between 1949 and 1969, the
Army released radioactive compounds in 239 cities to study the effects,
according to General Accounting Office testimony the hearings.
Other secret tests were conducted on prisoners, terminally ill
patients, military personnel, hospital patients -- even children.
At the time of the hearings, GAO officials stressed that the
number of victims might increase, as new information was uncovered from
Pentagon, CIA, NASA, and Energy Department files.
--
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John de Rivaz * Fractal Report *
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