The lawsuit stems from treatments performed on 90 patients at General Hospital, now called University Hospital, in the 1960s and early 1970s. It was a city hospital before it became part of the University of Cincinnati Hospital in 1979. Researchers conducted the treatments to determine if they could halt tumor growth.
Plaintiffs say the treatments caused pain and hastened the death of their relatives.
Defendants say the treatments were beneficial in some cases, and that any effect they had on death could not be determined because the patients were in advanced stages of cancer. Beckwith's objections included a question about whether it might be a problem to lump all the patients together as one class since evidence shows they received varying doses of radiation. The issue of whether to make it a class-action case also is under appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.