The Cincinnati Experiments (1960 to 1972)
[back] Human Experiments

The Treatment: The Story of Those Who Died in the Cincinnati Radiation Tests, by Martha Stephens, Duke University Press, c2002, Durham, N.C., ISBN 0-8223-2811-9

Records revealed last January show that 61 African Americans were guinea pigs along with 12 others in a 12 year military study at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center designed to see how exposure to full- and partial- body radiation 10 times higher than normal would effect the body. After 60 days of exposure to the radiation (250 rads in one session), 25 of the patients died.
    The tests were conducted from 1960 to 1972 by Eugene L. Saenger, an eminent radiological health specialist. Saenger knew something was wrong as he wrote a report to the Defense Department stating, "one can identify eight cases in which there is a possibility of the therapy contributing to mortality." Ironically, Saenger also serves as a key governmental witness on radiation lawsuit cases brought against the Department of Energy.
    Dr. David S. Egilman has been researching the Cincinnati experiments for over ten years and did not mince words when he told us, "What they did was murder those black patients. And those researchers, Gottschalk and Saenger, as dirty as Mingele." Egilman testified on January 18 before the House of Representatives Energy and Power Subcommittee regarding the experiments and further contends that the tests were conducted with no informed consent and were not ethical at the time. Radiation Scandal By Anthony and Denise Ji-Ahnte Sibert