College Students Taking Rocket Fuel

Did you know that poor college students have been used as guinea pigs? In 2000, Students at Loma Linda University in California were paid $1000 to participate in a study funded by defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The students were required to take a daily dose of perchlorate, rocket fuel, for 6 months. Those who were taking the highest dose, were taking an amount that was 83 time higher than California’s Action Level for rocket fuel in drinking water. Healthy males were also recruited at Harvard and Oregon State Universities to drink water laced with rocket fuel. The US Air Force may be conducting similar studies at other locations.

Rocket fuel is a known toxin that decreases thyroid hormone function and interferes with normal brain function. Nearly one in ten people are believed to have an undiagnosed thyroid condition, particularly low thyroid hormone production. Chemical contamination by rocket fuel, pesticides, dioxins, and PCBs are likely suspects.

Lower levels of thyroid hormone can cause attention deficit disorder, poor learning ability, depression, anxiety, unexplained weight gain, fatigue, and sexual apathy. While sexual apathy might be considered a desirable trait in college students, the inability to learn is certainly not.

According to the National Institutes of Health’s International Review Board (IRB), children over the age of 18 do not require parental permission to participate in research studies. Students are solicited by want ads in college papers and on advertisements on public transportation. Research is portrayed to be safe because it is conducted at respectable institutions. A website geared toward students downplays the risks claiming that “doctors will always go to great lengths to make sure you’re safe. So as long as you answer all the doctor’s questions honestly, any bad reaction will be a completely freak occurrence.” The website goes on to denounce “those pesky ethicists [that] have made an outcry against these types of trials”. (www.soyouwanna.com)

In 1996 a 19-year-old University of Rochester student died after undergoing a procedure as a volunteer subject in a research study. The study was to determine the role that airborne chemicals play in lung cancer. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the host of the study, responded by stating that the procedure that killed this young nursing student “carries a low risk”.

So before you pack up your child and ship them off to college, please be sure they know that research studies are not always safe . The potential for harm may outweigh the monetary benefits.

(References: Sharp, Renee and Walker, Bill. Rocket Science: Perchlorate and the Toxic Legacy of the Cold War. Environmental Working Group. July, 2001. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1996/wandeath-0410.html. http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/guineapig/guineapig.html.)