Friday, March 05, 1999
Radiation settlement delayed by one holdout
BY TIM BONFIELD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The sole surviving participant in Cold War radiation experiments at Cincinnati's old General Hospital has become the sole holdout against a settlement of a 5-year-old lawsuit related to the research.
Another family that had not signed off on the deal did so Thursday after meeting with U.S. District Judge Sandra Beckwith. However, none of the families can share in the $5 million proposed settlement until all the families agree to the deal.
The case involves families of about 90 cancer patients who were part of a whole-body radiation study at General Hospital (now University Hospital) from 1960 to 1971.
The families say their relatives were unwitting guinea pigs in a military-sponsored experiment to predict how soldiers would be affected by nuclear attack. The doctors involved, led by principal investigator Dr. Eugene Saenger, have maintained the radiation doses were intended primarily as pain-relieving treatment.
The case, which began in 1994 after a Cincinnati Enquirer investigation revealed several long-withheld patient names, has been tangled in complicated settlement talks for more than two years.
For the moment, the entire deal hinges on Donna White Christy, who was 10 years old in 1969 when she became study patient No.087.
On Thursday, Ms. Christy met privately with Judge Beckwith and a federal mediator. The full extent of Ms. Christy's concerns about the settlement were not discussed in open court. However, Judge Beckwith did say that one factor involves a request for continuing medical monitoring and coverage for any treatment that may be related to her exposure.
Ms. Christy declined to comment publicly on the case. Judge Beckwith said another hearing would be held early next week to discuss the outcome of talks with the mediator.
Ms. Christy's is unlike others in the lawsuit because her radiation dose, and a bone marrow transplant from a healthy twin sister, cured her cancer.
Ms. Christy had Ewing's sarcoma, bone cancer known even then to be sensitive to radiation. Most other patients had radiation-resistant tumors. In the lawsuit, families claim the deaths of several patients were hastened by the radiation exposure.
On Feb. 17, 1969, after initial treatment at Children's Hospital Medical Center, she was given 200 rad of total-body radiation at General Hospital, study documents say.
She sued the doctors, University Hospital and others in March 1994. Her case was later folded in with others into a class-action lawsuit.
In the suit, she said her parents do not recall signing a consent form nor being told the tests were financed by the Defense Department. Ms. Christy also said she suffers continuing health problems and was never told the possible aftereffects of whole-body radiation.
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