Talk:Cecil Kelley criticality accident

Implications

The Implications section suggests that Kelley was examined closely to monitor plutonium distribution in his body, but given that the mixer was a sealed container, it's not clear how plutonium would have got into Kelley at all. Fast neutrons and gamma radiation, yes, plutonium no. Jonabbey (talk) 20:25, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

You are correct-- the accident gave the lab a double opportunity: the chance to study radiation exposure AND to see just how much airborne plutonium had, over time, entered Kelley's body and where it had deposited. The plutonium deposits did not come from the accident, they came from six years of working with plutonium in the lab. The article does not make this clear-- care to brush it up?? I would be most grateful. KDS4444^Talk 07:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

They needed to correlate Kelley's plutonium levels with the sanctioned experiments discussed in The Plutonium Files where plutonium was fed to people on purpose. Plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known to man, by the way, apart from its radioactivity. I like to saw logs! (talk) 10:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

References

• Radiation Dose Estimation in the 1958 Los Alamos Criticality Accident Harris, P. S. Health Physics. 5(1):37-44, March 1961.
• Review of the experiments performed to determine the radiological consequences of a criticality accident
• “Los Alamos Criticality Accident,. December 30, 1958.” Nucleonics, 17(4), pp. 107–108, 151 (1959). 13. Ginkel, W. L., C. W. Bills, A. O. Dodd, K. K.
• Y-12’s 1958 nuclear criticality accident and increased safety — 1958 brought accidents, more safety
• A Review of Criticality Accidents 2000 Revision
• D. E. Hankins, "Dosimetry of Criticality Accident Using Activations of the. Blood and Hair," Health Phys. ^8, 529 (1980)
• THE ACUTE RADIATION SYNDROME. A MEDICAL REPORT ON THE Y-12 ACCIDENT JUNE 16, 1958

might help!

--Stone (talk) 20:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Dubious

"The US government had been waiting for an accident like this to happen"

I find this pretty dubious. It is not synonymous with dubbing this an "experiment of opportunity." I really think that a statement like this needs a direct page citation, because it smells of either poor synthesis, original research, or exaggeration. Just because they took the accident as an opportunity to learn something about plutonium doesn't mean they had been "waiting for an accident like this to happen," which implies negligence. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

The entire article is very objective till the last bit when an extreme amount of bias and subjectivity exist. Maybe the article should be flagged until the end part can be rewritten/reworked. 108.207.33.172 (talk) 10:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - This seems like a pretty bold statement and the citation seems a little suspect (per Mr.98). The way it is worded now it almost sounds like they intentionally caused the accident. I have placed an Undue template above this section. It is so outrageous that I considered removing it all together and moving it here for discussion, but it is cited so I feel this is better. DoctorLazarusLong (talk) 20:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The evidence presented by Welsome (see the references) is rather extensive. She is a good secondary source of what happened during that time. See also the court case proceedings against Dr. Clarence Lushbaugh. The government was so intent on getting "the data" (as Welsome calls it) that there were chemists in Kelley's emergency room swabbing his vomit for clues to his radioactivity, people gathered body fluid samples for analysis (not his health) and of course the extensive autopsy carried out without permission. The orders came from above rapidly because this was just the third death in only about 15 years and the plutonium data needed to be gathered and analyzed. So yeah, rather than the government asking for permission and carrying out public health studies with permission, they decided to do all of this under the guise of medical necessity, secrecy, and to fill in the many blanks of occupational exposure to plutonium. The government simply didn't know what plutonium burden people like Kelley were carrying, so they were waiting for an accident such as this in order to write the textbooks on long-term plutonium exposure. I like to saw logs! (talk) 05:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that of a singular source of information for the broad brushed claim. Medical experimental ethics were non-existent at the time, hence research was performed that is shocking to current minds, but was accepted at that time. ALL nuclear research was highly classified as well, so ANYTHING nuclear was automatically under wartime secrecy, to include industrial accidents like this. It was also during the early stages of the Cold War, where there was fear of an actual thermonuclear war, hence the wish to know the full impact of radiological contamination of humans, to predict civilian and military casualties. Indeed, even today, a body can be seized by the government, autopsy performed and organs removed for study and not only in nuclear environments, but in civilian life. One example is forensic autopsies, where family permission isn't necessary.Wzrd1 (talk) 20:06, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

And this article does not say whether such acts were right or wrong-- but it does explain in detail that they did, in fact, happen, and let the reader interpret what she/ he will. That there were no human subjects protocols is irrelevant to the relaying of the facts. Perhaps those who acted did so within the full permission of the law as it then stood... that makes the motives of their acts no less inhuman or their concern for the life of Mr. Kelley no more sincere (which the record suggests, in part, at least, it was not). That this impugns the reputation of the lab is unfortunate. That makes it no less factual, and no less appropriate for inclusion in this article. KDS4444^Talk 12:19, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Photo of Kelley

There's a photo of Kelley here: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/arafat-mystery-10-cases-radiation-poisoning/story?id=20815459#4 A biology professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland has posted an excerpt from Shipman (1961) that could be added to the references (I tried, but didn't figure out the proper format): http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Los_Alamos_Accident_1958.html Kelley's grave marker, including his middle name (Warren), and statement that he was a 1LT and paratrooper in the Army in WWII: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3872153 Banchang (talk) 22:14, 12 August 2016 (UTC)