A Nation Betrayed: Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on Our Children and Other Innocent People (32 page)

Historical Research and Response Team, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. U.S. Chemical Warfare Policy Camp Detrick, Md., July 16, 1945. These technicians at the Egg Plant are disinfecting and drilling eggs prior to inoculating them with Brucella suis or Chlamydia psittaci, the bacteria that cause brucellosis and psittacosis. Viral agents such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus were also produced in eggs.

In 1950, the U.S. Navy sprayed a cloud of bacteria over San Francisco. The Navy claimed that the bacteria was harmless and used only to track a simulated attack, but many San Francisco residents became ill with pneumonia-like symptoms, and one is known to have died. In 1952 and 1953, in another series of experiments, the U.S. military released clouds of “harmless” gases over six (6) U.S. and Canadian cities to observe the potential for similar releases under chemical and germ warfare scenarios. A follow-up report by the military noted the occurrence of respiratory problems in the unwitting civilian populations. Details of the test are still classified.

The Army conducted 239 open-air tests of biological agents between 1949 and 1969 with both simulates and live agents. In 1955, the Tampa Bay area of Florida experienced a sharp rise in Whooping Cough cases, including 12 deaths after a CIA test where a bacteria withdrawn from the Army’s Chemical and Biological Warfare arsenal was released into the environment.

In 1957, the Chemical Corps dropped a myriad of microscopic fluorescent particles of zinc cadmium sulfide along a path from South Dakota to Minnesota, to test the feasibility of contaminating a large area of the continent with biological organisms. In the first test, the air stream turned north and took the bulk of the material into Canada. Still, a test station in New York was able to detect the particles.

In the second test in 1958, it took the particles only 66 hours to travel from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
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Special collectors were located at 63 Civil Aeronautics Authority sites and 112 Weather Bureau stations. Over 2,200 samples were mailed back to the corps from these sites. During Operation Autumn Gold in 1963, 20,000 gallons of BG (bacillus globigii) slurry” was dropped from helicopters and jets.

Additional tests covered from Ohio to Texas, and from Illinois to Kansas. One contaminated air mass traveled from Toledo, Ohio to a short distance west of Memphis, Tennessee. The collected material was analyzed at the Dugway Proving Grounds.
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Although it had been only theoretical prior to this test, Operation LAC provided the first proof that biological agents were indeed potential weapons of mass destruction.
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In May 1997, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report intended to make people feel better about the cadmium sulfide releases. The panel concluded, “It is extremely unlikely that anyone in the test areas developed
adverse health effects.”
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The committee based this on the findings that high doses of cadmium over long periods of time could cause bone and kidney problems and lung cancer. Since the Army’s test involved small doses of a less toxic compound over short periods of time, they surmised no adverse health effects. They also theorized that since the army tests are now 30 and 40 years old, it would be extremely difficult to identify people who were affected and determine their past exposures to zinc cadmium sulfide.

In some cities the Army dispersed microorganisms either alone or in combination with the zinc cadmium sulfide. The Army omitted a 1932 study that concluded: “Cadmium, no matter how small the amount taken into the lungs, causes pathologic changes...there is, therefore, no permissible amount of cadmium.”
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Perhaps that is why the army stopped using zinc cadmium sulfide in the 1960’s. A 1973 investigation suggested that the effects of zinc cadmium sulfide spray may not have been reported because poisoning is “of a low-level chronic nature and its symptoms are less dramatic and more difficult to recognize than acute cadmium poisoning.”
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Professor Leonard Cole reports that Diane Gorny and Carol Thomas, who attended an elementary school in Minneapolis were among the targets of a 1953 spraying.
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A report stated that there were 61 releases in four different areas of the city. They suspect that the tests affected their health. Each claims that they and their classmates have had unusual numbers of miscarriages, fertility problems, and cancer. They have contacted over half of some 500 former students at the Clinton School. Dozens of female students reported having multiple miscarriages or other reproductive problems and an unusually high rate of cancer and asthma. There were also many cases of mental retardation among their offspring. Carol Thomas has
a Downes Syndrome son, one who is severely retarded, and the third has a serious learning disability. Gorny is sterile.

In an interview for Pacifica Network News, Diane Gorny recalled being scanned with a fluoroscope. Joyce Carlson, also a student of the Clinton Elementary School in 1953, suffers from respiratory problems today. She cannot understand why those responsible at the time allowed children to be in danger. During the interview Joyce said, “I feel that the people who were in power the city officials, the school nurses, and the people who did this testing (U.S. Army) ...oh, I can’t believe they did this! How could they allow this to happen? They didn’t even ask questions. I just hope that these kinds of things are not happening today!”

The Deseret Test Center in Utah was created for extra continental chemical and biological agent testing, including trials at sea and arctic and tropical environmental testing. The army, navy, and air force jointly staffed the new center with testing scheduled to begin in 1962.

In an article Lee Davidson wrote for the Washington Correspondent, he explains what he found in declassified documents.
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“For the experiments Deseret Test Center obtained the use of two ‘liberty’ ships, the mass-produced Merchant Marine cargo ships made during World War II. Tests also included five tugboats and the occasional use of submarines, jets, barges, and assorted smaller vessels.”

The idea, documents said, was to have various ships crisscross through germ and nerve agent clouds to collect information about exposure and decontamination. Crewmembers occupied protected spaces and information was evaluated by on-board lab facilities.

According to Guy Willis of Tennessee, who wrote about his work on the Hall in the mid ‘50s for a newsletter, “They were rigged in the early ‘50s so they could be steered by remote control, so they could be driven through downwind radiation clouds resulting from atmospheric detonations of nuclear devices” near Eniwetok and Bikini atolls.

Willis wrote that the crew, which reboarded the ship only hours after passing through such clouds to wash it down, “experienced considerable radiation exposure,” especially during long voyages back to the United States.

Despite the radiation exposure, the Hall and Eastman were included in Deseret Test Center’s navy tests, possibly because of the remote steering capability or because of their rigging with cages for test animals and lab equipment that would be needed again.”
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In another test the army wanted to know the effects of biological agents in natural settings. After receiving approval from the secretary of the army, the first open-air test was conducted at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah where 30 volunteers were exposed to an aerosol containing Coxiella burnetii, the rickettsia that causes Q fever.
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During the 1960s, the army conducted large-scale tests using the biological simulant Bacillus globigii (code name BG) at various places in the public domain to access the dangers of covert biological attacks. For example, in 1965 BG was tested at National Airport and the Greyhound Terminal in Washington, D. C. In 1966, BG was disseminated in New York City within the subway tubes and from the street into the subway stations in mid Manhattan. The army also conducted antianimal testing using BG at several
stockyards in Texas, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska between 1964 and 1965. Antiplant testing using the wheat stem rust fungus was also conducted at Langdon, North Dakota, in 1960 and Yeehaw Junction, Florida in 1968.
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In 1969, President Nixon banned all offensive biological and toxin weapon research and production. Congress later discovered that the CIA had retained an enormous supply of shellfish toxin that had been delivered to them by the Army. CIA Directory Colby had no reasonable explanation for the blatant disregard for the executive order given by Nixon. The CIA also chose to ignore the Treaty that had been signed by 18 nations, which prohibited the stockpiling of biological agents for offensive military purposes, and also forbid research into such offensive employment of biological agents.

How many of our loved ones are dead today due to these experiments? What is to become of all of those who were part of these experiments the innocent women, children, prisoners, and service members who became human guinea pigs for “A Nobler Purpose?” How many citizens of this country were exposed to radiation from fallout? Do we really need to ask why Cancer is so prevalent? How much were our oceans damaged due to sea dumping?

These are tough questions, for which you have the answers. Let your voices be heard, lest your silence convey a more powerful message to those in power. Until we make the necessary changes to protect every citizen, history will continue to repeat itself.

Arthur D. Little- Incapacitating Agent Research (1963-72)

American Institute for Research, Silver Spring, Maryland- Effect of Drugs on Human Performance (1966); Comparative Neuro-pharmacology of a Muscle Relaxant (1965) - Develop tests to measure effects of incapacitating agents (1964-67)

Armour Research Foundation

Baylor University-Study effects of Analgesic drugs on respiratory center and circulation in humans (1961-62), Unknown study from 1964-67; Study without purpose state 1965-68

Hahnemann Medical College-Evaluation of Therapeutic Compounds in animals and humans 1961-66 supposedly no humans used; 1967-68; - 65 volunteers used; 6-68 thru 12-68, 26 volunteers used; 1969-70 26 volunteers used Harvard College-Molecular Structure & Diffusional Processes Across Intact Epidermia (1964)

Harvard University-Collection & Identification of Plant Material (1965)

Hazelton Labs-Biological Evaluation of CML Compounds (1966-70), Development & Practical Application of New Primary Screening Methods (1964-67), Primary Toxicity Screening Tests and Methodology (1967-71), Biological Evaluation of Lethal & Incapacitating Agents (1964-66); Irritant Screening of Compounds (1965-66); New Method Dev for Irritant Screening (1965-66); Procurement & Evaluation of Naturally Occurring Biologically Active Material (1964)

I. I. T. Research Institute (Armour)-Biomed Studies of BZ (1964)

Indiana University-The Physiological effects of Atropine and Atropine Substitutes (1951-53) One contract DA18-108-CML-2397 was awarded to the Indiana University in 1951. The seven reports regarding that contract did not reveal any information regarding screening or selection of volunteers. The absence of such details was not unusual as the contract predates publication of DOD and Army policies governing uses of volunteers in Medical research. The studies apparently dealt primarily with chemical research. However, there was evidence of seven volunteers used in atropine studies.

Indiana University Foundation Research-Contract 6591-an Out-Of-House Contract for the years 1960-63 for the Psychological Studies of the Effects of Incapacitating Agents

Institute for Behavioral Research-Drug Effects and Complex behavioral repertories involved in Monkeys, Baboons, & Humans (1962-1965)

Institute of Medical Science

Ivy Research Labs-Threshold Doses of various chemical agents used on in Humans (1968 -73)

Holmesburg Prison-Choking agents, nerve agents, blood agents, blister agents, vomiting agents, incapacitating agents, and toxins. At least 94 inmates used in these experiments. (See University of Pennsylvania for more experiments at Holmesburg Prison.) Additional experiments done in 70-71 to an unknown number of people.