To finally settle the class-action lawsuit filed against him over human tissue samples, a former Los Alamos pathologist has agreed to pay $800,000. The samples are said to be taken in secret from hundreds of bodies at Los Alamos Medical Center in a Cold War-era study into radiation.
Dr. Michael Stewart, a former worker at the hospital finally agreed to pay the money to the families of 304 people whose organs were taken for the study. The settlement was approved last week by state District Judge James Hall.
Stewart was part of a program in which pathologists at the hospital provided Los Alamos National Laboratory with human tissue samples from hearts, livers, brains, and other organs. The lawsuit said that the families who signed autopsy release forms were not aware of the study nor were they told the tissue would be given to governments scientists.
Members of the lawsuit are expected to receive payments under Stewart's agreement this summer. About $200,000 of the settlement will go for attorney's fees, according to court documents.
The court documents also show that Stewart and other defendants contended autopsies were authorized by family members or by state law. The lab however, acknowledged that express consent to the use the autopsy tissue may not have been obtained from next of kin.