$5.4M Radiation Case Settlement Ok'd

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Wednesday May 5 6:27 AM ET 

$5.4M Radiation Case Settlement Ok'd

CINCINNATI (AP) - A federal judge has approved a $5.4 million 
settlement of lawsuits by families of cancer patients who subjected 
to Cold War radiation experiments by University of Cincinnati 
researchers.  

The lawsuit charged that the approximately 90 cancer patients who 
received radiation treatments from 1960 to 1972 in Cincinnati were 
not fully informed of the risks, or told that the Defense Department 
was getting the results to learn what might happen to troops 
exposed to radiation.  

All but one of the plaintiffs has died. The defendants never 
conceded that the experiments contributed to the deaths of the 
patients, who already had advanced cases of cancer when they 
underwent experimentation.  

Dr. Eugene Saenger, one of the chief researchers, has said his 
main objective was to study experimental treatments for patients
with inoperable cancer to see if he could stop the growth of tumors.

The university administration believes the research was appropriate 
and there was no wrongdoing.

The agreement approved Tuesday gives each of the families about 
$50,000, plus the right to have the patient from their family
listed on a plaque in a courtyard at the hospital.

Anna Foster, a Cincinnati woman whose grandmother Parthenia 
Marshall, 82, died in 1982 after receiving the radiation
bombardments, said Tuesday she is pleased with the settlement.

``I'm just glad it's over,'' Ms. Foster said.

The case puts researchers on notice that people who are 
experimented on must be told what is being done to them and why, 
said Robert Newman, a lawyer for about 50 plaintiffs.  

``Government can't trick people into being part of a drug trial or a 
psychological experiment or radiation experiment,'' he said.

The Pentagon paid $651,000 - about 60 percent of the funding - for 
the results of the experiments. The government, the university, the 
researchers and the city will pay the settlement. The hospital 
where the tests were conducted was formerly run by the city  
and then by the university.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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