Nation IN BRIEF : MASSACHUSETTS : Radioactive Food Said Used in Tests

At least 49 mentally retarded teen-agers, used as guinea pigs, were fed radioactive food in the 1940s and 1950s by researchers from two universities in a study of the human digestive process. The tests, funded partly by the Quaker Oats Co. and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, used radioactive forms of iron and calcium to determine if a heavy diet of cereals slowed down the body’s digestion of those minerals. The experiments, disclosed by the Boston Globe, were conducted by researchers from Harvard University and MIT between 1946 and 1956.