Hidden history of US germ testing

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4701196.stm

 

Hidden history of US germ testing

 

Fifty years ago, American scientists were in a frantic race to counter

what they saw as the Soviet threat from germ warfare. Biological

pathogens they developed were tested on volunteers from a pacifist

church and were also released in public places.

 

The remarkable story is told in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Hotel Anthrax.

 

In the 1950s, the Seventh-day Adventist Church struck an extraordinary

deal with the US Army. It would provide test subjects for experiments

on biological weapons at the Fort Detrick research centre near

Washington DC.

 

The volunteers were conscientious objectors who agreed to be infected

with debilitating pathogens. In return, they were exempted from

frontline warfare.

 

Fort Detrick was working on weapons it could use in an offensive

capacity as well as ways of defending its troops and citizens.

 

Hotel Anthrax uses declassified documents, evidence from Senate

investigations and personal testimony to trace the American bio-weapon

programme during this period.

 

The research involved anthrax, other lethal bacteria and biological

poisons. The scientists also conducted tests on an unsuspecting

American public.

 

Rabbit fever

 

More than 2,000 volunteers, nicknamed the " white coats " , passed

through Fort Detrick between 1954 and 1973, where they worked as lab

technicians, as well as offering up their bodies for science.

 

One white coat, George Shores, tells of how he was infected with

tularaemia or rabbit fever.

 

Even my gums hurt. I don't think I have ever been so sick in all my life

George Shores

A giant metal sphere, known as the Eight Ball because of its

resemblance to a snooker ball, was used in the experiment. Technicians

exploded prototype bio-weapons inside the structure.

 

" They had like telephone booths all the way around the outside of the

Eight Ball and you went into the telephone booth and shut the door and

put on a mask like a gas mask.

 

" It was hooked up to the material that was inside the Eight Ball and

you breathed it in, " explained Mr Shores.

 

He began to feel ill before too long.

 

" Even my gums hurt. I don't think I have ever been so sick in all my

life. First it started as a headache and achy feelings and it just

kept progressing.

 

" I just wanted to breathe enough to keep alive. I would just take

little gasps of breath and I would hold it for as long as I could

because it hurt so bad.

 

" I can imagine if someone was using that agent in the battlefield the

soldier would just have to lie down - he would not be able to function. "

 

The white coat volunteers were not infected with the most lethal

microbes. Their role was to test the effectiveness of new vaccines and

antibiotics and as soon as they became ill, they were given medical

treatment. Within a few days, George Shores began to recover.

 

But America's Institute of Medicine is conducting a study of more than

6,000 veterans who say their health has been compromised by secret

tests in the Cold War years.

 

Some of these were veteran sailors who were involved in tests known as

SHAD - Shipborne Hazard and Defense - which involved spraying lethal

chemicals such as sarin and nerve gases in the open sea.

 

The BBC programme makers also obtained declassified documents prepared

by the US Department of Veterans Affairs which refer to a study of

nearly 100 SHAD veterans who have since died.

 

It found the veterans were three times more likely to have developed

one of a group of killer diseases as a sample group in the general

population.

 

It concludes: " This study does suggest that veterans who participated

in Project SHAD may be at increased risk for cerebrovascular and

respiratory diseases. "

 

Subway experiment

 

But it wasn't just the white coat volunteers and sailors who were

subject to experiments. Scientists used what they thought was a

harmless simulant in major bio-weapon tests across US cities and on

public transport.

 

It was a bacteria which they believed was harmless but which would

mimic the dispersal of deadly biological agents such as anthrax.

 

But later research showed that the strain of Bacillus globigii , or

BG, did pose a risk to people who were ill or whose immune system was

failing.

 

The programme hears from a retired scientist whose job in 1966 was to

drop light bulbs carrying BG on the New York subway. He would then

measure how the simulant might spread in the event of a real attack,

using a motorised vacuum devise concealed inside a suitcase.

 

Wally Pannier, 82, recalls: " We'd just drop light bulbs with the

powdered stimulant inside.

 

" I think it spread pretty good because you had a natural aerosol

developed every few minutes from every train that went past. "

 

It's very hard to try and put today's ethics on standards 20, 30, 40

years ago

Dr Michael Kilpatrick

In 1994, the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs conducted what it

described as a comprehensive analysis stretching back 50 years of the

extent to which veterans were exposed to potentially dangerous

substances without knowledge or consent.

 

It was chaired by John D Rockefeller.

 

In a damning report, it concluded that the Department of Defense (DoD)

repeatedly failed to comply with required ethical standards when using

human subjects in military research - and that the DoD demonstrated a

pattern of misrepresenting the danger of various exposures and

continued to do so.

 

Dr Michael Kilpatrick, a medical adviser to the DoD, claims the

concerns which SHAD veterans have been raising may, finally, be

changing that behaviour.

 

" It's very hard to try and put today's ethics on standards 20, 30, 40

years ago. That's not to excuse it. I think they were trying to

protect people using the medical science that was available at that time.

 

" We're taking a look at any current tests that require consent of our

military personnel.

 

" We're making sure that there is an archive, a registry, a way to get

back to all of the information. "

 

Hear part 1 of Hotel Anthrax at Radio 4's Listen again page.

Part 2 is on Monday, 20 February, 2006 at 2000 GMT.

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Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4701196.stm

 

Published: 2006/02/13 15:31:10 GMT

 

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