[8] Although initially fading from public eye, the controversy resurfaced in 1993[9] and was soon investigated by President Bill Clinton's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments.
[13] Although multiple military researchers, including the Director of the Division of Nuclear Medicine and Chemistry, wrote to the US Army Medical Research and Development Command that they doubted the practical value of Saenger's proposed study, the DOD approved the grant proposal due to its possibility of evaluating the combat effectiveness of soldiers in nuclear warfare.
[18] During irradiation, patients' bodies were positioned to mirror a soldier's defensive position; the radiation was intended, but not proven, to be administered unidirectionally to reflect a soldier's exposure; and the irradiation was administered all at once, which diverged from the standard medical practice at the time, where cancer patients were given small doses cumulatively to maximize destruction of cancer cells.
[19] Even so, in the progress reports sent to the DOD and in his testimony to the Subcommittee on Administrative Law and Governmental Relations in 1994, Saenger maintained that the primary goal of the study was to provide palliative and therapeutic care to the patients.
[26] In addition, bone marrow was occasionally extracted prior to the irradiation and later reinfused in an effort to alleviate the debilitating health effects of the radiation.
[24] The irradiated patients experienced a wide variety of side-effects: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, emaciation, hemorrhaging, fatigue, cognitive impairment, and hallucinations.
[28] In 1969, the National Institutes of Health evaluated the Cincinnati General Hospital's ethical practices, prompting Saenger to adopt a new consent form outlining the purpose, procedure, and risks of the irradiation tests to the patients.
"[37][38] Other members of the FCR such as Dr. R. L. Witt and Dr. Edward P. Radford recommended approval of the study only under the provisions that the researchers clearly outline the therapeutic goals and palliative likelihood of the experiments.
[39][40] On May 23, 1967, the new bone marrow transplant protocol was approved with the provision that the experiments solely focus on the "therapeutic efficacy of whole body irradiation.
[41][42] In April 1972, another proposal entitled "Evaluation of the therapeutic effectiveness of total and partial body irradiation as compared to chemotherapy in humans with carcinoma of the lung and colon" was sent to the FCR, but the president of the University of Cincinnati soon terminated the contract between the DOD and the UC researchers in a deal with Senator Edward Kennedy following negative press coverage of the experiments.
[43] Dr. Saenger's contract with the Department of Defense first gained public attention when the Washington Post broke the story on October 8, 1971, following investigative journalism by Roger Rapoport.
[51] While Saenger and Dr. Silberstein criticized the JFA's report, asserting that "the only unfavorable comments had come from a handful of local, and non-medical junior faculty members" in their unpublished article "Ethics on Trial: Medical, Congressional and Journalistic,"[52] the report and the accompanying Washington Post article drew Senator Edward Kennedy's attention, who was already investigating medical experimentation in the United States.
[51] As part of his investigation of the Cincinnati Radiation Experiments, Senator Kennedy sought interviews with the patients, an effort resisted by Saenger and Silberstein.
[53] Following this televised program was a tide of local press coverage which led to the Cincinnati Radiation Experiment's story being covered in the New York Times.
[56] The renewed publicity also prompted Martha Stephens and Laura Schneider, a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati, to investigate the identities of the patients and their family members.
[11][59][47][60] After numerous hearings in In Re Cincinnati Radiation Litigation, on May 4, 1999, Judge Beckwith settled the case for over $4 million, paid by the University, the City, and the individual researchers.
[61] In October 1999, the plaque with the words "In Memoriam: Radiation Effects Study 1960–1972" was erected near the building of the Cincinnati General Hospital where the experiments were performed.