Young people in institutions for troubled adolescents were unknowingly fed radioactive cereal in order to trace where the iron and other nutrients in the cereal travelled to in the body and to learn more about the deposition of radioactivity in the body. The experiments were conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-sponsored by the US government's Atomic Energy Commission and the Quaker Oats company. In 1997, Quaker Oats and MIT agreed to pay US$1.85 million in compensation without admitting guilt.