Testing on unwitting military personnel
In August 1949 a
U.S. Army Special Operations Division, operating out of
Fort Detrick in
Maryland, set up its first test at
The Pentagon in
Washington, D.C. Operatives sprayed harmless bacteria into the building's air conditioning system and observed as the microbes spread throughout the Pentagon.
[54]
The US military acknowledges that it tested several chemical and biological weapons on US military personnel in the desert facility, including the
East Demilitarization Area near
Deseret Chemical Depot/
Deseret Chemical Test Center at
Fort Douglas, Utah, but takes the position that the tests have contributed to long-term illnesses in only a handful of exposed personnel.
[55] Veterans who took part believe they were also exposed to
Agent Orange. The
Department of Veterans Affairs denies almost all claims for care and compensation made by veterans who believe they got sick as a result of the tests. The US military for decades remained silent about "
Project 112" and its victims, a slew of tests overseen by the Army's Deseret Test Center in Salt Lake City. Project 112 starting in the 1960s tested chemical and biological agents, including VX, sarin and E. coli, on military personnel who did not know they were being tested. After the Defense Department finally acknowledged conducting the tests on unwitting human subjects, it agreed to help the Veterans' Affairs Department track down those who were exposed, but a General Accountability Office report in 2008 scolded the military for ceasing the effort.
[55]
[edit] Testing on unwitting civilians
Medical experiments were conducted on a large scale on civilians who had not consented to participate. Often, these experiments took place in urban areas in order to test dispersion methods. Questions were raised about detrimental health effects after experiments in
San Francisco,
California, were followed by a spike in hospital visits; however, in 1977 the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that there was no association between the testing and the occurrence of
pneumonia or
influenza.
[56] The San Francisco test involved a
U.S. Navy ship that sprayed
Serratia marcescens from the bay; it traveled more than 30 miles.
[56] One dispersion test involved laboratory personnel disguised as passengers spraying harmless bacteria in
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
[56]
Scientists tested biological pathogens, including
Bacillus globigii, which were thought to be harmless, at public places such as subways. A light bulb containing
Bacillus globigii was dropped on
New York City's
subway system; the result was strong enough to affect people prone to illness (also known as Subway Experiment).
[57] Based on the circulation measurements, thousands of people would have been killed if a dangerous microbe was released in the same manner.
[56]
A
jet aircraft released material over
Victoria, Texas, that was monitored in the
Florida Keys.
[56]
[edit] GAO Report
In February, 2008, the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) released report GAO-08-366 titled, "Chemical and Biological Defense, DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests." The report stated that tens of thousands of military personnel and civilians may have been exposed to biological and chemical substances through
DOD tests. In 2003, the DOD reported it had identified 5,842 military personnel and estimated 350 civilians as being potentially exposed during the testing, known as
Project 112.
[58]
The GAO scolded the U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD) 2003 decision to stop searching for people affected by the tests was premature.
[55] The GAO report also found that the DoD made no effort to inform civilians of exposure, and that the
United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is failing to use available resources to inform veterans of possible exposure or to determine if they were deceased. After the DoD halted efforts to find those who may have been affected by the tests, veteran health activisits and others identified approximately 600 additional individuals who were potentially exposed during Project 112.
[58] Some of the individuals were identified after the GAO reviewed records stored at the
Dugway Proving Ground, others were identified by the
Institute of Medicine.
[59] Many of the newly identified suffer from long term illnesses that may have been caused by the biological or chemical testing