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Following World War II, a secretive U.S. Navy facility in San Francisco became a center for extensive human radiation experiments. The Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory (NRDL), located at the Hunters Point Shipyard, was established to study the effects of nuclear warfare. A recent investigation has brought to light that hundreds, and possibly thousands, of military personnel and civilians were exposed to radiation, often without their informed consent.
The experiments were part of a broader Cold War effort to understand how soldiers could function on a nuclear battlefield. According to newly unearthed documents and testimonies, these studies were wide-ranging and ethically questionable. The human radiation experiments at the facility included mock combat drills on land contaminated with radioactive material, skin tests, and plans to administer radioactive isotopes to subjects, which reportedly included a proposal to inject players from the 49ers football team.
Many of the test subjects were service members, some of whom had already been exposed to radiation during atmospheric atomic bomb tests in the Nevada desert. One such case was Cpl. Eldridge Jones, who participated in nuclear tests and was later assigned to the San Francisco lab to handle radioactive materials. The studies were authorized by the U.S. government, sometimes as a direct response to miscalculations during nuclear weapons tests. This secretive Navy Lab operated for decades, pushing the ethical boundaries of scientific research of the era.
The full scope of the NRDL's activities has remained largely obscured for decades due to destroyed records and the passage of time. The lab was officially shuttered in 1969, but the legacy of its work continues to impact the area. The former radiation lab site poses ongoing health risks as it is located near new residential developments at Hunters Point, raising environmental justice and public health concerns for the community still dealing with the aftermath of contamination.
