Peaceful atoms in Japan: Radioisotopes as shared technical and sociopolitical resources for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and the Japanese scientific community in the 1950s

In this paper, I discuss how Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) officials and local Japanese scientists interacted to advance their scientific and sociopolitical goals. The ABCC had serious public relations problems but the agency’s access to radioisotopes, valuable to both groups, created an opportunity to collaborate. In 1955, the ABCC established a Radioisotope Laboratory in Hiroshima, in part to improve public relations. Local scientists saw the laboratory as a resource to develop their research programs. At the same time, the ABCC needed local scientists to establish public legitimacy and recruited prominent Japanese scientists to join the ABCC including at the management level. The agency also tried to promote peaceful uses of atomic energy among the public by creating a permanent exhibit for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Situating the ABCC in the broader context of postwar Japanese medicine and science, I suggest that the needs and desires of the Japanese community influenced the agency’s work. In turn, interactions with the ABCC also affected Japanese science and medical research: ultimately, this collaborative promotion of radioisotope research resulted in increased use of isotopes in Japanese human subjects, including the survivors