It's one of the dark marks of the U.S. Government in the 20th century — a complete willingness to expose unwitting citizens to dangerous substances in the name of scientific advancement. It happened with the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, with the MKUltra mind control project and with the atomic bomb testing of the 1940s and 50s. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) knew that dangerous levels of fallout were being pumped into the atmosphere, but didn't bother to tell anyone. Well, anyone except the photographic film industry, that is.
Photographic film is particularly radiosensitive -- that's the reason why you see dosimeters made from the stuff, as they can be used to detect gamma, X-ray and beta particles. But in 1946, Kodak customers started complaining about film they had bought coming out fogged.
Eastman Kodak investigated, and found something mighty peculiar: the corn husks from Indiana they were using as packing materials were contaminated with the radioactive isotope iodine-131 (I-131). Eastman Kodak at the time had some of the best researchers in the country on its team (the company even had its own nuclear reactor in the 1970s), and they discovered something that was not public knowledge: those farms in Indiana had been exposed to fallout from the 1945 Trinity Test in New Mexico -- the world's first atmospheric nuclear bomb explosions which ushered in the atomic age. Kodak kept this exposure silent...
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/02/26/not-so-secret-atomic-bomb-tests-why-the-photographic-film-industry-knew
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
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Argentine president overrides extradition of man charged in Denver murder
The government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner issued an executive order Sept. 16 overriding a December decision by the Argentina Supreme Court. The court had approved the extradition of Kurt Frederick Sonnenfeld to the United States.
The government's order cited human rights in its denial of the request to grant extradition. It also says that extradition could put Argentina in a position of violating an international principle of not forcing the return of asylum seekers to countries where they could be persecuted.
Sonnenfeld, who was charged in the New Year's Day 2002 murder of his first wife, Nancy, is a former videographer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. His video over the course of several weeks in September 2001 documented rescue and recovery efforts that were broadcast around the world...
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29130615/argentine-president-overrides-extradition-of-man-charged-in-denver-murder
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