It's a bright spring Sunday and freshly minted University of Cincinnati graduate Sean Johnson is walking on the university's medical campus.
He's looking for a memorial to his great grandmother and dozens of others who unwittingly took part in painful experiments very near here decades ago. He turns onto a tiny side street lined with parking garages.
"There's so many pretty places on this med campus, and this is just not one of them, you know?" he says. "Very concrete. There's not a lot of trees or anything. Nothing really catches your eye."
The memorial is in a small patch of grass shaded by an office building.
"Oh wow," he says. "You could literally drive past this and you wouldn't know. It's a little worn-looking. I mean, the flowers are kept up, but..."
He pauses and stoops down to peer at the list of names in small font.
"I see my great grandmother — she's seven names down from the left," he says. "Ellen Elizabeth Conyers."
It's the first time Johnson has seen the plaque. In fact, he just learned about the experiments this year in a history class. He told his family back in Detroit about them.
They mentioned the experiments sounded like something his great grandmother had experienced — high doses of radiation to treat advanced cancer that seemed only to make her sicker in the months before she passed away. Sure enough, her name was on lists of the test subjects.
About the Department of Defense experiments
A UC radiologist named Eugene Saenger headed up a Department of Defense-funded project between 1960 and 1972, studying the effects of radiation on the human body.
It's unknown exactly how many people Saenger experimented on over the course of more than a decade. Records show it's at least 90.
Many participants thought they were undergoing treatment for their late-stage cancers when Saenger put them in a machine and exposed their bodies to high levels of radiation.
But the researchers weren't administering cancer treatments, according to UC Professor John Lynch, who studies bioethics.
"They wanted to get a better sense of what happens to combat troops after they might be exposed to a nuclear weapon in a tactical, like World War III opening scenario — how much radiation troops might receive, and when it would incapacitate them."
Some patients died within months. Many experienced burns and extreme nausea that went untreated.
'That was just really hard to watch'
Bruce Holmes' younger brother, Terry Lee Holmes, also was among the test subjects. Terry was diagnosed with a large tumor in his shoulder at age nine.
At first, local doctors in Richmond, Indiana, treated Terry and his cancer went into remission. But then it returned. So his family took him to Cincinnati's General Hospital for more advanced treatment. That's where he was enrolled in the DoD experiments.
Bruce says his brother faced his illness with bravery — playing golf even after his shoulder blade was partially removed and going on a trip to Disneyland. But he also recalls the high doses of radiation made Terry desperately ill.
"I remember times when we'd go out to eat, and he'd lay down in the booth," Bruce said of the pain and nausea. "That was just really hard to watch."
"We had no idea the extent of the radiation," Bruce says. "We didn't find out about that until he was long gone."
A UC secret?
Generations of UC students who have learned about the radiation experiments in humanities or medical ethics classes have pushed for greater awareness about the history.
Those efforts have intensified recently. Student groups and faculty have created an informational website about the experiments, hosted panel discussions with families of experiment victims and held information events for students on the campus quad.
At one recent event, student volunteers encouraged their classmates to post an anonymous secret on a nearby wall. In exchange, the volunteers told them about one of UC's secrets — the radiation experiments.
Patients at Cincinnati General Hospital were mostly Black and working class, and those groups are heavily represented in the experiment subjects found in the project's records.
That is not lost on Sean Johnson. He says his great grandmother's experience as a Black woman who unknowingly underwent an incredibly painful experiment has caused some members of his family to distrust the medical system.
Johnson thinks something similar to the UC radiation experiments is less likely today. But the revelation it happened helps him understand the mistrust among his family and others.
"I feel like a lot of times in the Black community, there's a skepticism toward institutions," he says. "Knowing this information — it literally has affected people firsthand. People have lost loved ones to experiments."
The long road to recognition
The UC experiments were largely unknown until the Washington Post published a story about them in 1971. It drew national attention and ignited an investigation by Senator Ted Kennedy.
Bioethicist John Lynch says there were other pressures — including a scathing report by untenured UC faculty led by whistleblower and English Professor Martha Stephens. She would later write a book about the experiments.
"Out of that struggle, eventually UC's new president at the time decided not to renew the contract with the Department of Defense and the study was shut down, and everything was sort of quieted up," Lynch says.
The experiments resurfaced in the 1990s, when victims' families filed a class-action suit. Each family got about $50,000 after a five-year legal battle.
'This doesn't give any context at all'
The settlement also stipulated a memorial. That small plaque Johnson recently visited simply reads "In memoriam, cancer patients radiation effects study" and lists the names of its subjects.
UC is planning a 200,000-square foot gateway building to welcome people to its main campus. Some student advocates think a display there should acknowledge the radiation experiments.
WVXU reached out to UC to ask about whether the university is considering supplementing or replacing the memorial. The university did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
Johnson says he'd like to see a memorial that humanizes his great grandmother and the other experiment victims. Something more than just names on a plaque.
"There are so many different ways artistically you can show a memoriam, to give context," Johnson says. "But this doesn't give any context at all. 'Effects study' doesn't really say what the school did."
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