Lawsuit: Pregnant Woman Was Injected With Radiation Mother Says She Was Unknowing Victim Of 1952 Experiment

Sat., Oct. 14, 1995

By Karen Dorn Steele karend@spokesman.com

Jill Million Hayes was five months pregnant in 1952 when she became a human guinea pig, according to a lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Spokane.

A Tri-Cities doctor linked to two hospitals and a government laboratory involved in Cold War radiation experiments began to give her daily radiation injections while telling her the shots were vitamins and antibiotics for a kidney infection, the lawsuit says.

Hayes’ injections were part of “a broad systematic program of human experimentation, sponsored by the U.S. government and conducted in concert with private institutions,” said Spokane attorney Nancy Oreskovich in the complaint.

Hayes and her daughter, Jeanne Haycraft, are seeking damages from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Pasco, Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, and the doctor, Eugene R. Fairbanks of Bellingham.

The Washington hospitals were collaborating in the radiation experiments with the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the lawsuit claims.

It also says Fairbanks was employed by Los Alamos and Virginia Mason while a family physician in the Tri-Cities from 1949 to 1957.

Hayes and Haycraft live in Auburn, Calif. Hayes lost a baby boy as a result of the experiments, and she and her daughter continue to suffer from thyroid disease and other problems, the lawsuit says.

Fairbanks could not be reached on Friday. A spokesman for Our Lady of Lourdes said officials couldn’t comment Friday because it was the first they’d heard of the lawsuit. It also was a surprise at Virginia Mason.

, DataTimes

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