Re: MIT, Quaker Oats Settle Radiation Lawsuit

[Eric Denison <denison.8@osu.edu>]

At 02:12 PM 1/05/98 -0600, Harold Reynolds wrote:
>Is anyone other than me disturbed by the fact that MIT is rolling over on
this
>issue rather than trying to show that such minor doses probably had no
>detremental effects at all.

Harold, I'm sure that a lot of us are upset about MIT's unwillingness to
fight this.  Unfortunately, they are concentrating on the wallet and the
public image, to the detriment of truth and good science.  McDonald's did
the same thing -- they paid off the dumb broad who spilled the coffee in
her lap rather than go to court to show that the problem was the result of
the customer's own negligence.

It's the prevalent attitude these days.  Companies, universities, and
high-profile individuals will settle suits out of court without officially
admitting that they were wrong because it's cheaper than going to court.
Considering the trend for juries to award astronomical sums for relatively
minor "injuries," they're probably right.  What they don't seem to realize
is that paying off the plaintifs still makes them look guilty.  It also
feeds the trend toward suing over anything and everything.

Unfortunately for MIT, the issue of informed consent (regardless of whether
the standard back then was comparable to present interpretation) would
surely come back to bite them in the rear.  It would be virtually
impossible to seat a jury in this country that would be capable of putting
aside the anti-nuclear "all radiation is bad" hoodoo in order to judge the
issue scientifically.  The plaintif lawyers would never let enough of us
into the room at any one time...

Eric


Eric Denison <denison.8@osu.edu>
Radiation Safety Technician
Environmental Health & Safety
The Ohio State University