Settlement Near in Atomic Experiments

Hoping to close the books on a dark episode in U.S. history, federal negotiators are nearing a financial settlement with families of 12 people who were unwitting subjects of radiation experiments during the earliest days of the Atomic Age. Relatives of the victims would get a combined total of $4.8 million a draft agreement with the Department of Energy. Families also would receive a personal apology from the Energy Department The 12--all of them now dead--were among at least 18 hospital patients who unknowingly were injected with plutonium or uranium in the 1940s.