Darling Directorship Spanned 15 Years of Change

by Seymour Jablon, Expert, US National Cancer Institute

In 1957, George B. Darling succeeded Robert Holmes as Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission director, a position he served in until his retirement in 1972. During the longest tenure of any director, Darling presided over a fundamental change in ABCC and a redirection of its program.

Darling, ABCC’s fifth director. He served from June 1957 until December 1972, the longest tenure of any ABCC director.

Before 1957, ABCC studies of the atomic bomb survivors had resulted in only a handful of significant publications.

Jim Neel and Jack Schull’s classic work (1956) on the effect of exposure to the atomic bombs on pregnancy terminations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had demonstrated that, although radiation exposure may well have caused mutations, the number was not large enough to be detectable even from the examination of tens of thousands of births in the two cities. By 1952, it had become clear that radiation exposure was a cause of leukemia (Jarrett Folley and colleagues), and in the same year George Plummer published the first report concerning mental retardation accompanied by small head size in children whose mothers had been exposed to atomic bomb radiation during pregnancy. As early as 1949, David Cogan had reported the occurrence of radiation-induced cataracts in some A-bomb survivors. Malignant diseases other than leukemia, however, had not yet been reported and, as we know now, had barely started to occur in the year George Darling arrived in Japan and would not be recognized until several years later.

In 1972, when Darling left Japan, the ABCC had become established as the major source of information concerning radiation carcinogenesis, effects on the fetus, and chromosomal aberrations; the estimates of cancer risk following radiation exposure contained in the National Academy of Sciences report on the biological effects of ionizing radiation–BEIR 1972–were based, in large part, on the data published and analyzed by ABCC. Similarly, the 1972 publication of UNSCEAR’s Ionizing Radiation: Levels and Effects began almost every one of the subsections on different forms of cancer with the data on A-bomb survivors.

The evolution of ABCC

How did this happen? Why did ABCC–an organization whose productivity had been so low that some contended it had done all it could do and should be phased out–become the preeminent source of information on the biological effects of ionizing radiation? It was not the doing of a single person; the contributions to planning, organization, and staffing by R. Keith Cannan, chairman of the National Research Council’s Division of Medical Sciences, and by Thomas Francis Jr., the head of the University of Michigan’s Department of Epidemiology, were of strategic importance. But planning and organization alone bear no fruit; the organization must be focused on the task, and the plans must be realized. Darling saw clearly what needed to be done; he was prepared to devote to the task the many years that he knew would be needed, and he brought the ABCC from its former condition to its present place as the foremost source of information about the effects of radiation on humans.

George Darling was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received a Doctorate of Public Health from the University of Michigan. After some years with the Michigan Department of Public Health, he joined the Kellogg Foundation. Following the end of World War II, he became vice president for medical affairs at Yale University and later, when in a reorganization that position was abolished, Professor of Human Ecology. He held that position until 1957, when he was persuaded by Cannan that there was an opportunity to make important contributions to science, to humanity, and to international understanding, at ABCC.

What, specifically, did he do? What were his accomplishments? Several were of critical importance.

In the earliest days of ABCC, although the work of H.J. Muller and others had shown the importance of genetic studies and it was clear that one of the mutagenic effects of radiation might be an increase in congenital malformations, little was known about possible somatic effects. There had been reports of shortened life span following radiation exposures, and this led to the hypothesis, since discarded, of “accelerated aging.” Clinical studies at ABCC were begun without clear objectives. In consequence, various researchers developed their own agendas. With a few exceptions, physicians from the US came for two-year “tours,” each with his or her own idea about what might be useful to do. Plans for observations changed, and the idea of establishing a specific cohort had not taken root.

The Francis Committee’s report (1955) had emphasized the critical importance of continuity. An important element of such a plan was the establishment of fixed, well-defined groups of exposed and non-exposed persons that would permit determination of disease rates and tracking of changes over time. Darling took the Francis recommendations seriously and was adamant that the program not be changed to suit the ideas of each new chief of medicine or pathology.

He coordinated the research programs

In the early years of the program, there was no effort to achieve coordination although it is evident that pathology studies could provide support to the clinical examination program, and vice versa, only if the two programs were focused on the same persons.

Based upon the Francis Committee’s recommendations for a Unified Study Program, the subjects for the clinical examination program were chosen to be a subset of the cohort upon which the life span mortality study was based. The autopsy, tumor registry and leukemia registry programs were also based on that cohort. Even the biochemical genetics program was able to supplement the cohort of children derived from the original genetics studies with additional children, offspring of members of the life span cohort, since they could be ascertained from the official mandatory family records, known as koseki.

He emphasized the importance of collaboration with Japanese scientists

When the ABCC was first established in the late 1940s, the Allied Occupation of Japan was still in place, and the Japanese people were busy trying to rebuild their country and grow enough food to survive. The ABCC drew its support from the Occupation forces and shared in its prestige and commanding position. In short, ABCC did whatever it wanted to do.

As the years passed, Japan’s recovery and the end of the Occupation combined to make anomalous the position of ABCC as a foreign institution studying Japanese in Japan. Although it would be many years before the anomaly was resolved by the abolition of ABCC and the establishment of RERF in 1975, it was evident to Darling that foreigners could not, in the long run, maintain the studies without the collaboration of Japanese scientists, government agencies, and universities.

In the earliest years, ABCC had the help of Japanese associate directors (Hiroshi Maki and Isamu Nagai), but Darling brought in other scientists–many who were retiring professors–as department heads and consultants. The dean of Japanese radiologists, Masanori Nakaidzumi, for example, was able to smooth relations between ABCC and the Japanese radiological community; Keizo Nobechi, an eminent epidemiologist, organized a department of epidemiology and brought in several young epidemiologists (including Hiroo Kato, who recently retired after 30 years of service to ABCC-RERF).

In August 1958, the first written agreement between the US and Japan to formalize cooperative research endeavors was exchanged to mark the beginning of the Life Span Study. Beginning second from left: JNIH Director Keizo Nakamura, ABCC Associate Director Masanori Nakaidzumi (1956-64), Japanese Public Sanitation Bureau Chief Takehisa Omura, George Darling, ABCC Associate Director Hiroshi Maki (1948-75), and Japanese Public Sanitation Bureau Planning Section Chief Taisuke Kawasumi.

As a result, ABCC acquired a group of young and energetic Japanese biochemists, geneticists, pathologists, epidemiologists and biostatisticians, without whom the program would have perished.

He integrated the program with Japanese institutions

When the ABCC was established in 1948, it had been decided that the Japanese National Institute of Health (JNIH), an organization of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, would be the corresponding agency to ABCC. Branch laboratories of JNIH were established in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These laboratories functioned in close harmony with the ABCC research departments.

Darling, however, in consultation with the JNIH director, decided to strengthen and formalize the relationship. Formal, bilingual research protocols were prepared and reviewed not only by ABCC but also by JNIH for the major studies: the Life Span Study, the Adult Health Study, the pathology program, studies of the survivors’ offspring, and others. Joint consultative committees, or kyogikai were established for each of the major programs. A senior Japanese advisory committee was formed, which was chaired by the JNIH director and included in its membership, among others, the presidents of the universities in the two cities, medical school deans, and officials of the national government and of local medical associations.

Pathology kyogikai (joint consultative meeting), April 1967. Seated on the far side of the table, from left: JNIH Director Keizo Nakamura, unidentified man, Darling, Albert Hilberg (US Public Health Service), R. Keith Cannan (US NRC), and ABCC Interpreter Kenji Yorichika. At left, reading a manuscript, Takemune Soda, director of the Japanese Institute of Public Health.

He inaugurated bilingual publications

The earliest publications from the ABCC, mostly written by the foreign staff, were in English and usually appeared in American journals. This emphasized the foreignness of ABCC and provided fuel for the activists who opposed the organization on the grounds that the Americans were treating the Japanese sufferers like “guinea pigs,” were not interested in treating the survivors, were hiding the results of the studies and were using the research as part of the American government’s preparation for a new imperialist war.

As one of his first acts, George Darling ruled that all publications would appear first in bilingual format, as ABCC technical reports. The authors were free to publish in either Japanese or English (or any other language) only after the report had been accepted as a bilingual technical report. An enormous burden on the translators, this was part of the reason that publication of technical reports was often delayed. But the action was critically important in demonstrating the institute’s dedication to open publication and to making the results of the studies available to Japanese as well as the rest of the world.

It is interesting to note that, after 1975, when the ABCC was succeeded by RERF, with a Japanese chairman and a binational board of directors and equal representation of Japanese and American citizens, bilingual publication of technical reports seemed less essential. Many reports are now printed only in English with a translated summary.

He recovered the Joint Commission materials

The US Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Atomic Bomb in Japan, which had been active in 1946 and had been directed by the military, had, as a matter of course, deposited pathology specimens, reports, and lists of data at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington. Perhaps at that time there was no real alternative–the Japanese people and universities were devoting their energies to rebuilding and reestablishing their institutions and could spare little attention for storing and safeguarding the medical data and specimens. There were, however, repeated accusations that the Americans had removed the materials from Japan for nefarious purposes, and the situation became a continuing source of friction with some elements of Japanese society. Darling was determined to remove this irritant and finally succeeded. The pathology slides and other materials were returned in 1969 to the universities in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The ABCC was a unique research organization, and no one person deserves exclusive credit for its success. Many persons made critically important contributions and those of Shields Warren and, particularly, R. Keith Cannan, were essential. But, while foresight, plans and preparation were important, the task of execution remained. Without the skillful, thoughtful, patient, and dedicated efforts of George Darling, it is doubtful that ABCC could have achieved the success that it had or could have survived as long as it did.

Katsuhiko Yano of ABCC’s Department of Medicine (far right) reports to the Adult Health Study kyogikai in 1967. Facing the camera, from left, Gilbert Beebe, Kenneth Johnson, ABCC Department of Medicine Chief Benedict Harris, Darling, unidentified man, and JNIH Director Keizo Nakamura.

In the photo at left, Department of Medical Sociology Chief Scott Matsumoto, left, receives a certificate for 10 years of service to ABCC (1957-67) from Darling.


This article was originally published in RERF Update 3(1):5, 1991. The author’s long association with ABCC-RERF began in 1955 when he journeyed to Japan as a member of the Francis Committee, which reviewed ABCC’s research program. Jablon also was RERF’s Statistics Department chief, 1960-63 and 1968-71. He later served as the National Research Council’s associate director for international affairs from 1978-87.

戻る