The Department of Energy has released a list of classified human subjects research (HSR) projects for fiscal year 2018, following a nearly seven-year delay after a Freedom of Information Act request was filed in 2019. The single-page document reveals eleven ongoing classified HSR projects, up from ten in the previous year, with code names such as Tristan, Helios, and Woodstock. The projects involve a range of participants and include both fully and partially classified studies, many of which continue from the prior year’s list without providing further operational details.
This release comes under DOE Notice 443.1 and its successor, DOE Order 443.1C, which mandate tracking and reporting of classified HSR to ensure oversight and ethical compliance, especially in light of historical abuses in Cold War-era radiation experiments. The lists are compiled by DOE’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and the Office of Science, although public disclosure remains limited to project titles, participant counts, risk assessments, and review dates. Despite the lack of detailed descriptions, the annual updates signify ongoing classified research involving human participants that is formally acknowledged by DOE oversight channels.
The disclosure highlights persistent tensions in balancing national security with transparency and ethical standards in government research. The DOE’s historic shortcomings in human subjects protections, exposed during the 1990s, led to regulatory reforms that continue to shape current oversight practices. However, the classified nature of many projects complicates public accountability and understanding. These released lists, while limited in detail, provide rare insight into classified research protocols involving human subjects, emphasizing the importance of continued vigilance and scrutiny in federally conducted scientific studies.
Source: The Black Vault
