FOI2023/00648: 1960s radioactive study on South Asian women
Case reference FOI2023/00648
Published 15 September 2023
Request
Request Received: 27 August 2023
BACKGROUND
The Coventry MP Taiwo Owatemi has called for a statutory inquiry into medical research in the 1960s on south Asian women in the city, who were given chapatis containing radioactive isotopes.
A total of 21 Indian-origin women, identified through a Coventry GP, were given the bread containing Iron-59 (an iron isotope with a gamma-beta emitter) as part of a research trial in 1969 into iron deficiency in the south Asian population.
After consuming the bread, the women were taken to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in Oxfordshire where their radiation levels were measured as a way of judging how much iron had been absorbed.
The women are assumed to have been recent immigrants with limited English and the few who were identified in the 1990s, when the trial first came to light, said they did not give informed consent and were not aware of the use of radioactive isotopes.
Request
Provide the consent form(s) or similar given to the women.
Response
Response Sent: 15 September 2023
Full details of this response are provided in the attached documents.
Documents
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