http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_315950.html
A US university spokesman has confirmed stillborn babies were secretly used in nuclear experiments in the 1950s.
Bodies were shipped without parents' permission from Australia, following an appeal for 'research material' from a US scientist.
Larry Arbeiter, of the University of Chicago, says the experiments were seen as necessary.
The experiments began in 1955, when Dr Willard Libby, of the University of Chicago, appealed for large numbers of bodies.
He asked for preferably stillborn babies, or babies that died shortly after birth, for experiments on the effect of fallout from atom bomb tests.
"At the time, permission was not typically sought for this," said Mr Arbeiter, who added that the experiments were vital in creating pressure to reduce above-ground testing for nuclear weapons.
A spokesman for Australian health minister Michael Wooldridge said the government is investigating claims that Australian babies were used in the US Department of Energy tests.
Mr Arbeiter told Sydney's 2GB radio: "Scientists were especially concerned with an element called Strontium 90, it's radioactive, it was considered the most dangerous of the fallout chemicals.
"In the 1950s, very widely in the US, and I suspect also in Australia, stillborn infants were typically autopsied then disposed of in hospitals. Those bodies provided the opportunity for scientists to understand how much radiation was going into the food."
Mr Arbeiter said at the time there were no instruments sensitive enough to measure the amounts of harmful material in a human being. The only way of doing so was to convert human remains into ash then put them inside a kind of sophisticated Geiger counter.
Last updated: 10:32 Tuesday 5th June 2001
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