Harvard scientists in the 1940s and 50s conducted government sponsored radiation experiments on humans, exposing scores of subjects to dangerously high doses of radioactive isotopes.

Harvard, in response to media reports of the experiments, has begun an informal investigation into its own records and is reviewing the scientists' published studies. The University has not yet been contacted by any test subjects, Joe Wrinn, a University spokesperson, said yesterday.

In one of the most hideous experiments, first reported on December 26 by the Boston Globe, scores of mentally retarded children at the Fernald School in Waltham, Mass., were given radioactive iron and calcium with their breakfast cereal. The experiments, conducted by Harvard and MIT scientists from 1946 to 1956, were done without fully disclosing the hazards to all the subjects, the newspaper said.

The state Department of Mental Retardation this week assembled a task force made up of attorneys, physicians, mental retardation experts and patient advocates to investigate the experiments at the Fernald school.

Gerald C. Ryan, spokesperson for the Department of Mental Retardation, said it is too early to determine the involvement of Harvard researchers and scientists in the experiments.

"Harvard's name has been mentioned in the reports but it's early to say at this time," Ryan said. "We're not looking to assign blame but to determine what the level of radiation was, were the tests consistent with the ethical standards of the time, and what has become of the test subjects."

Wrinn said Harvard is prepared to assist the state agency with its investigation. "There is a definite effort here to cooperate with any investigation," Wrinn said.

Experts from the Medical School, the School of Public Health and the history of science, physics and chemistry departments all said in interviews this week that determining which Harvard professors conducted the experiments and the scope of their involvement with testing on humans will take weeks, or perhaps months,because many of those involved in the experimentsare dead and many of the records are missing.

But the experts also expressed strong concernabout the reports of the Fernald tests and other,even more hazardous experiments which wereproposed by MIT and Harvard scientists.

One such proposal--considered by the late Dr.Shields Warren, a Harvard pathology professor--wasto develop a nuclear-powered airplane. To developthe craft, scientists, including Warren, proposedtesting humans to determine their threshold forradiation exposure.

"We're only scratching the surface inuncovering the documents on this, but all of thepeople involved in nuclear-powered airplaneproject were aware of the ethical concerns becausethe Nuremburg trials were going on," said Dr.Gilbert F. Whittemore, who in 1988 published an30-page article on the proposal for theatomic-powered plane and the ethical debate overhuman experimentation which ensued.

The Nuremberg code, signed at the end of WorldWar II, stresses that the "voluntary consent ofthe human subject is absolutely essential."

According to a report in the Boston Herald, Dr.Robert S. Stone of the University of CaliforniaMedical School, a scientist working with Warren,proposed that he and Warren use prisoners as testsubjects, adding that convicts are "likely toremain in one place where they can be observed fora great many years."

Whittemore, a former instructor at Harvard andMIT who is writing a book on the history ofradiation protection, said the proposal for theplane was well documented because the scientistslobbied the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission forpermission to conduct their experiments on humans.

The Atomic Energy Commission controlled allradioactive isotopes after World War II and wasthe only government agency which could licensetheir use by scientists in such experiments.

"They have files of everybody who applied forresearch, including the projects that wereproposed and were not funded. With the nuclearplane project, there was a proposal for seeing howmuch radiation pilots could withstand," Whittemoresaid, adding that the proposal for experimentationon humans was denied on ethical grounds.

"They're just now beginning to delve into thesedocuments and the story is just beginning to comeout," Whittemore said.

Dr. Lynn M. Peterson, director of the Divisionof Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School, saidthe experiments were "clearly wrong."

"Not only was it connected to the cold war, butit was also connected to a wave of enthusiasm formedical experimentation without thought to itsdanger," Peterson said.

"The good seemed to dwarf any consideration ofharm or risk. By the standards of the era it doesnot seem to be egregious, but by today's standardit's totally wrong," he said.

Warren, a pioneer specialist in the biologicaleffects of radiation, was a senior official at theAtomic Energy Commission. Before his death in1980, Warren also held positions with theDepartment of Defense, the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration and the Veterans'Administration.

His New York Times obituary said Warren"directed his efforts at learning how to identifyand control the hazards of radiation for those whohad to confront them."

Warren's involvement with the atomic-planeproject likely concerned that kind of radiationcontainment project.

But most of Warren's research involved givinglarge doses of radiation to terminally ill cancerpatients. In an article he authored in the May1949 American Journal of Public Health, Warrenwrote that "the development of the atomic bomb hasbeen felt as keenly as a contribution to thewelfare of mankind as in the programs for thedevelopment of weapons to destroy mankind."

Vice President and General Counsel Margaret H.Marshall did not return repeated phone callsyesterday