A graduate of Harvard University,[1] Saenger was an extremely controversial pioneer in radiation research and nuclear medicine, at the expense of human autonomy and dignity.
[2] From 1960 until 1971, Saenger, a radiologist at the University of Cincinnati, led an experiment exposing 88 cancer patients, mostly poor and 60% of whom were black, to whole body radiation, even though this sort of treatment had already been discredited by other researchers for the types of cancer these patients had.
This resulted in nausea, vomiting, severe stomach pain, loss of appetite, and mental confusion.
[3] A report in 1972 indicated that some of the patients died of radiation poisoning, but some of the deaths might have been due simply to the late-stage cancer they already had when experimented on.
Saenger received a gold medal for "career achievements" from the Radiological Society of North America.