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

• Radioisotopes became shared resources for both ABCC and the Japanese community. • ABCC established Radioisotope Laboratory partly to improve its public relations. • Japanese experts hoped ABCC access would help advance radiation medicine in Japan. • Concerns about public reactions to the Lab led ABCC to recruit Japanese experts. • ABCC was a part of rapidly changing postwar Japanese medicine and science.