The document summarizes four cases from "The Plutonium Files" where individuals violated Protocol 10 of the Nuremberg Code in human radiation experiments. It analyzes how each case failed to meet the standards of "probable cause", "good faith", "superior skill", and "careful judgement" by knowingly exposing subjects to unsafe radiation doses and conducting experiments without medical justification or consent. The individuals in these cases warranted prosecution as war criminals for intentionally endangering human lives through non-therapeutic experimentation.

1. Plutonium Files/Nuremberg Protocols Essay
Aaron Garrett
History 396: Nuclear Weapons and the Cold War
June 11, 2016

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The individuals referenced in the assigned reading The Plutonium Files––including
commanding officers, civilians, and physicians––failed to meet the standards in rule ten of the
Nuremberg Medical Code in the following specific cases: “HP-12” Ebb Cade, “CAL-1” Albert
Stevens, “#239876” Eda Schultz Charlton, and “CAL-2” Simeon Shaw. This paper showcases
how the actions of these individuals warranted trial as war criminals in the conduct of radiation
experiments on human subjects. It defines specific language in protocol ten and explains how
those involved violated this protocol. It builds a case of knowledge before, during, and after each
experimental case.
Protocol ten serves as the basis for examination into the individuals in The Plutonium
Files and therefore necessitates definitions of key phrases before going into the specific cases
themselves. In this protocol four specific prerequisites require ending any and all experiments on
human test subjects. The first phrase “probable cause” means that before even operating on a test
subject those involved know or ought to know the prior history of medical experimentations
using the material and methods in question. They need to terminate any experiment if prior
knowledge conflicts with the goals and methods for the experiment. The second phrase “good
faith” means that those involved need pure intentions throughout the course of the experiment.
Pure intentions mean the intent to pursue an experiment in order to disprove a hypothesis, never
just for the sake of experimentation. Those involved need to terminate any experiment if the goal
fails to line up with disproving a hypothesis. The third phrase “superior skill” means that those
involved need to the requisite educational level and proficiency in order to conduct an
experiment. In absence of this they need to terminate the experiment. The final phrase “careful
judgement” means that those involved need the discernment necessary to continue or terminate
an experiment at any time. Discernment requires all of the conditions listed above (i.e. prior

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knowledge, pure intentions, and requisite educational and proficiency level). If anyone involved
in an experiment fails to exercise such judgement out of ignorance, neglect, or intentional means
then they violate protocol ten.
The first case, Ebb Cade, shows many violations of protocol ten. Prior to Ebb Cade’s case
knowledge existed about tolerable and intolerable amounts of plutonium through experiments on
rats, and this data became applied in human experimentation. Tolerable dose varied during the
time of all these experiments, ranging from 0.1 micrograms to 0.5 micrograms. In addition to
tolerable dose, sufficient knowledge existed at this time about the effects of plutonium on the
human body. Specific knowledge existed about the effects of plutonium on the organs, bones,
and bone marrow. The amount of plutonium injected into the body of Ebb Cade exceeded the
tolerable dose for humans. It mentioned that Ebb Cade received “4.7 micrograms of plutonium –
nearly five times the amount scientists at the time felt could be retained without harm in the
human body.”1 Ebb Cade died of heart failure within eight years of his first injections with
plutonium.
The scientists who experimented on Ebb Cade clearly knew of sufficient “probable
cause” from prior experimentation that this level of injection produces either injury, diseases, or
even death. Because of Ebb Cade’s extensive skeletal damage due to a car accident, they
designed the experiment in order to measure the effects of high amounts of plutonium on the
bones and particularly the regrowth of bone. However, this indicates a lack of “good faith” in the
course of the experiment. The intentions of those involved ended up amounting to injecting Cade
with the amount of plutonium necessary to view the effects on the regrowth of his bone. While
this seems on the surface like they tried to disprove a hypothesis, they never once proposed a
1 Eileen Welsome, The PlutoniumFiles: America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War (New York, NY:
Dell Publishing), 84.

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hypothesis. In “good faith” they never needed to perform the experiment in the first place.
Lastly, this case violates the “careful judgement” aspect of protocol ten. The experiment
continued with Cade because of intentional reasons, showing either a lack of discernment on the
part of the individuals or ignoring their discernment in the matter.
The second case comes from Albert Stevens. Prior to Albert Stevens’s case the results of
Ebb Cade became known. They showed the negative effects of intolerable amounts of plutonium
on the body, specifically the bone and bone marrow. Kenneth Scott, who prepared the plutonium
solution for Albert Stevens’s experiment, injected what one of his assistants later deemed a
“carcinogenic dose” into Stevens.2 The tragic part of this experiment came when they determined
upon further examination of his unconscious body that the cancerous ulcers once thought present
in him actually ended up noncancerous. After the experiment he returned to his old job but
frequently went into the hospital complaining of weakness and inability to put on weight. He
lived many years longer than most anticipated since his dosage equaled 858 times the amount an
average person became exposed to during the course of his twenty-two remaining years of life.3
He died in 1966 of cardiorespiratory failure.
From the very beginning “probable cause” dictated the scientists terminate this
experiment. They knew the amount of plutonium in Albert Stevens’s body constituted a lethal
dose hundreds of times over. In Stevens’s case it appears the real purpose of the experiment
became to study the effect on his organs, since they removed parts of them from an unconscious
Stevens for examination.4 This brings into question the exercise of “good faith” in his case. No
records indicate that Stevens consented to organ and bone removal. This casts doubt on the
2 Eileen Welsome, The PlutoniumFiles, 92.
3 Ibid., 122.
4 Ibid., 92.

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intentions of those involved with him. The scientists never proposed any hypothesis to disprove.
It appears that the organ and bone removal from Stevens constituted an experiment for the sake
of one. Above everything, tolerable dose regulations never condoned such an extreme dose of
plutonium. The very reason they used such an inordinate amount stemmed from obeying orders,
but also showed lack of “superior skill” in the case. They lacked or intended to overlook the
blatant violation of tolerable dose. The deliberate and intentional nature of the experiment to see
the impact on his body constitutes purposeful violations of protocol ten.
The third case comes from Eda Schultz Charlton. Before her case, preliminary results
from multiple experiments including those mentioned above became available to doctors. Eda, a
hypochondriac, began to experience various physical issues in late 1945. After some vitamins
given by local doctors she began to develop a rash. In November 1945 she arrived at the
Rochester Hospital. Initial thoughts centered around her diet, high in salt and low in protein, as
the reason for her rash and general health issues. Eleven days after admittance she transferred to
the plutonium wing, called E-3, under the direction of Samuel Bassett. By Thanksgiving she
ended up injected with both saline and plutonium. The amount of plutonium, 4.9 micrograms,
constituted sixty-six times the amount of radiation the average person became exposed to in a
year.5 Records from the hospital omit Eda’s participation in any experiments involving
plutonium.6 She never became seriously sick with any major disease at the time of the injections
yet they still experimented on her. The Manhattan Project doctors realized that her relatively
normal health allowed for a baseline to determine the excretion and metabolic rates of plutonium
in a person’s body.7 She died in 1983 from cardiac arrest.
5 Ibid., 138.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., 139.

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The actions of those at the Rochester Hospital violated protocol ten. Those experimenting
on her possessed sufficient knowledge about the harm in this high dose of plutonium. This brings
into question both “probable cause” and “good faith” in the experiment. Despite her longevity
after the injection, the dose Eda received necessitated ending the experiment before it even
started. Prior history on the effects of plutonium through multiple experiments served, at the very
least, to showcase the problems with going beyond a tolerable dose. Like every case detailed in
this essay, going beyond tolerable dose violates “good faith” in these cases. In Eda’s case it
appears that she became nothing more than the next person in line for experimentation. She
entered the plutonium wing of the hospital more like a test subject and less like a human. The
doctors established a baseline for further experiments based on Eda’s results, however, this never
constitutes a necessary reason for experiments like this. Her case became experimentation for the
sake of it.
The final case comes from a four-year-old boy named Simeon “Simmy” Shaw. He came
to the United States to undergo a treatment unavailable in his native Australia. He became the
first patient to receive a new experimental solution that combined plutonium-238 with radio-
yttrium, radio-strontium, and radio-cerium.8 Doctors first called Simmy’s condition a fractured
femur, then later discovered bone cancer in that femur. Once Simmy and his mother arrived in
the United States doctors at The University of California kept Simmy away from her for the most
part. He began to develop ear infections in both ears and on 26 April 1946 received his
plutonium injection. The doctors omitted radio-strontium from the solution and plutonium-238
replaced plutonium-239.9 Simmy experienced frequent high fevers before and after the injection,
ultimately dying on 6 January 1947.
8 Ibid., 149-50.
9 Ibid., 153.

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The very nature of this experiment calls into questions many things in protocol ten and in
common human sense. Experimenting on a minor when the mother never consented to the
lengths it went became simply an intentional act against common human dignity. Specifically, in
protocol ten at least three of the phrases come into question. Simmy’s case demonstrates
“probable cause” became ignored by all participating in it. The early suggestion to use radio-
strontium needed to raise grave concerns over the nature of the experiment. Numerous cases
showed the highly dangerous effects of this radioactive element. One such experiment in the
1940s showed that even minute levels of radio-strontium caused death.10 Luckily Simmy never
received this deadly compound. Throughout this experiment the stated goal never became clear,
meaning no hypothesis arose to justify it. In “good faith” those who injected and operated to
remove Simmy’s cancerous bone needed to end the experiment even before the injection itself.
Those involved never exercised discernment to end the experiment, calling into question their
collective “careful judgement” on the matter. Again this case shows an intentional use of a
human subject for experimentation for the sake of it.
Those involved in these four experiments detailed in The Plutonium Files frequently
failed to meet the standards of protocol ten in the Nuremberg Medical Code. While these
protocols became retroactively applied to Nazi medical doctors for experiments on humans
during World War II, the same ought to apply to these experiments. The violations detailed here
warranted their trial as war criminals for the experiments they conducted on human test subjects.
10 Ibid., 30.