THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE
Health and Medicine Division
Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice
Committee to Conduct a Feasibility Assessment of Veteran Health Effects of the Manhattan Project
(1942-1947) – Related Waste
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Congressional Briefing
Tuesday, July 22, 2025 – 3:00 p.m.
via Zoom
On
Evaluation of Manhattan Project Records for
Veteran Health and Exposure Assessments
The Manhattan Project was a large-scale, top-secret program of the U.S. federal government created with the specific purpose of developing the world's first nuclear weapon. Each step of the manufacturing process involved potential exposures to chemical and radiological hazards for those involved. Records documenting Manhattan Project processes, activities, and individual people were not uniform, archived in various locations, and at times destroyed due to both administrative and accidental reasons, resulting in a fragmented historical record of the people and activities.
At the request of Congress in P.L. 117-168, the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022, this new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducts a feasibility assessment to determine whether an epidemiologic study could be conducted to examine health outcomes in active-duty military veterans who participated in the Manhattan Project at 13 specified sites. The resulting report offers conclusions on the feasibility of conducting such a study and provides alternative methods to examine associations between exposures and adverse health outcomes among this population of veterans.
This briefing was for members of Congress and congressional staff only. The report was publicly released on July 23, 2025 and can be found, in its entirety, on the Web site of the National Academies Press.