The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has rejected a request for compensation filed on behalf of former students at the Fernald State School who were used without their knowledge in radiation experiments during the 1940s and '50s.

The mentally retarded students were fed small amounts of radioactive calcium in their breakfast cereal and iron supplements.

In a letter replying to the request, Stuart Kaufman, the general counsel for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, wrote:

"On the basis of our investigation, we have denied your claim.... You may pursue this matter through court litigation if you wish."

Kaufman explained the reasoning behind the denial in an interview yesterday.

This issue is "too complicated to be handled at the administrative level, but the claimants are certainly free to pursue the matter in court," Kaufman said. "The purpose of the denial letter was to trigger the process to take the matter to court."

Officials at the state Deparment of Mental Retardation said yesterday they support granting the former students "reasonable compensation."

According to Richard Robison, director of community relations at the DMR, this support has taken the form of helping those tested get medical examinations and providing documentation of the experiments.

"In the meantime, the department has been working with the attorney general's office to mediate an appropriate response to attorneys [representing the former test subjects]," Robison said yesterday.

Meanwhile, former students of the school have filed a $60 million suit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Quaker Oats and doctors at the Fernald School, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

The suit claims that the research conducted was to help Quaker Oats find a way to gain an advantage over their competitors by comparing how the children's bodies digested Quaker Oats and Cream of Wheat.

The radiation tests at the Fernald school came to public attention with the release of a report by a state task force on March 9, 1994.

According to the report, many such radiation tests were conducted over a period of three decades at various state schools.

The report revealed that proper consent was often never obtained and that in many instances, an absence of refusal by parents and guardians was taken as an assumption that permission had been granted.

The radiation tests were found to be in violation of the fundamental human rights of the subjects involved.