Professor who experimented with human radiation dies

CINCINNATI (AP) — Dr. Eugene L. Saenger, a physician and University of Cincinnati professor who led controversial Cold War-era human radiation experiments, has died at age 90.

Some 90 late-stage cancer patients were treated with high doses of radiation from 1960 to 1971 without being told that a study of their responses would be used to help the military assess the effects of a nuclear attack on soldiers. In 1994, Saenger was sued by families of the cancer patients who said their relatives were unwitting guinea pigs in a military-sponsored experiment.

The lawsuit was settled in 1999 for $3.6 million. Martha Stephens, a retired University of Cincinnati professor, wrote about the experiments in a 2002 book, “The Experiment.”

Patients consented to receive the radiation, Stephens said, but they weren’t told it could kill them or that the military was involved.

The family members said the whole-body radiation might have shortened patients’ lives. Saenger and colleagues maintained that the radiation doses were meant to relieve pain and control cancers.

“I know personally that he was affected deeply by that public reaction,” said Stephen Thomas, a UC medical physicist. “I also know that he felt he had acted entirely within the realm of medicinal science as it was known at that time. He definitely felt that he had not overstepped any bounds, any ethics in the research.”

Saenger, who died Sept. 30, was considered a pioneer in nuclear medicine and radiology. He graduated from Harvard University and earned his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati, completing his residency at Cincinnati’s General Hospital, now University Hospital.