Mary Susan Lindee, Doctoral Student. Dissertation topic: "Radiation, human heredity and the work of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, 1947-1956." Ms. Lindee is examining the study by American scientists of the genetic damages on human populations of the atomic bomb blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. The study attempted to track genetic damage in the offspring of survivors of the atomic bombings. This genetics study was unique scientifically, socially and politically. The tensions that shaped it included the developing Japanese-American relations, the expectations and fears of those exposed to A-Bomb radiation, the professional goals of participating scientists, and the military's need for immediately useful information about the effects of radiation. There pressures all affected scientific choices made by ABCC investigators. Ms. Lindee hopes to study how the various political, social, and military pressures led genetics researchers to focus their attention on radiation mutagenesis primarily in terms of its social costs. She will also examine the implications of this focus for understanding the post-war development and institutionalization of American human genetics as a whole.
