Project 112/SHAD Information

[J.B. Stone]

Project SHAD/112 was the U.S. Military's highly classified Bio-Chemical Test Program from the 1960's.

This is the ship that served as the Main Laboratory Ship for the program from 1962 to 1972.

I served on the USS Granville S. Hall, YAG-40, in 1969:

<img src="http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/kn10000/kn12831.jpg" height="550" width="550">

Please note the huge "crow's nest" that was specially designed and mounted on the Granville Hall's forward mast. It was installed to catch Nuclear Fallout from Above Ground Nuclear Tests in the South Pacific in the 1950's.

There was a Sister Ship, the USS George Eastman, YAG-39, which was identical in function and appearance and which accompanied the Granville Hall on many very dangerous assignments.

Many of the Sailors that operated these vessels are now dead or sickly because of their Nuclear, Biological and Chemical exposures during the Above Ground Nuclear Tests and Bio-Chemical Warfare experiments carried out in some VERY surprising locations.

I will be posting information specific to these efforts on this thread.

Thank You for your kind consideration,

J.B. Stone, Human Test Rat

USS Granville S. Hall, YAG-40

ETN-2, 1969, U.S. Navy

[J.B. Stone]

The current state of affairs regarding Project SHAD/112 in America. There were also Canadian Veterans involved in Bio-Chemical Tests in the 60's.

BEATING THE BIO-CHEMICAL BUSHES

If you like Stephen King, you’ll LOVE this one! It’s been giving me sleepless nights for three decades.

There’s a worldwide uproar concerning the whereabouts of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Absorption. He used Bio-Chemical Weapons on 250 Kurd villages in 1988 and admitted to having plenty more after Gulf War I. The rest is, as they say, “History.” You’d be terrified from a large scale Bio-Chemical assault here. Remember that unsolved Anthrax Attack right after 9-11?

Let’s say 10,000 or more Americans were to succumb to exposures of Anthrax, Plague, Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis, Tularemia, Coxiella Burnetii, deadly manmade gasses such as Sarin, VX & Tabun, or hallucinogenic substances like BZ Gas. Some would die horribly from convulsions and others would suffer slow, lingering deaths and beget deformed and disabled children for generations. You’d be aghast at the debilitating cerebro-vascular, respiratory and painful skin ailments running amok in your neighbors. You’d demand immediate reprisals against the perpetrators and expect the best health care and compensation for the families who lost loved ones, just like 9-11, right?

No you wouldn’t.

If you were in the U.S. Congress or White House right now you wouldn’t lift a finger to address this situation. You’d just cover it up and look away. You’d make it impossible for the victims to even apply for Federally funded assistance.

Oh, yes you would! That’s EXACTLY what’s happening in Congress today.

Perhaps you missed the attack because the very same people who funded that activity now hide it from your view? The U.S. Government planned, funded, executed and denied the attacks.

“What Bio-Chemical attacks? When did this happen? You’re joking, right? You just made this up to get my attention!”

“Unfortunately, not.”

From 1962 to 1973, the CIA, DOD, and Smithsonian Institution participated in Project 112/SHAD, during which more than 10,000 U.S. Servicemen became human test rats for the above-mentioned substances and more. At: http://www.va.gov/SHAD/
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/current_i ... ntro.shtml and http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/macleod01strictly.html You will confirm that the Americans who suffered these injuries and losses are treated exactly as described, documented by the Veterans Administration, Department of Defense, and Journal of the History of Biology. [Well, at least you’ll get the current “official version”.]

Project 112 was the land-based component of the Bio-Chemical Weapons experiments, exercised in Civilian surroundings in: Maryland, Georgia, Florida, Panama, Puerto Rico, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Utah and Canada. Marine Jets, Army surface ships & tugboats, and at least one Navy submarine executed Project SHAD [Shipboard Hazard & Defense] at sea near Nova Scotia, California, Hawaii, and the Marshall Islands.

Robert McNamara sold this program to JFK & LBJ at the cost of $4 Billion 1962 dollars and 10,000 American lives over 10 years. Every session of Congress since then has funded some form of this activity under the guise of “national security”. How secure do YOU feel right now?

The current VA “SHAD Protocol” is designed to further prevent the Veterans involved from acquiring VA Benefits. The Veteran is required to supply his Medical Records for before, during and after SHAD to establish his “service connection”. That sounds reasonable. Too bad the NSA, CIA, & DOD won’t release the necessary “classified” documents.

House Resolution 5060 & Senate Bill 2704, “The Veterans Right to Know Act of 2002,” were initiated in the 107th Congress to alleviate that situation. They’ve since been shuffled off to various sub-committees with only superficial hearings. H.R.2433, known as “Health Care for Veterans of Project 112/Project SHAD Act of 2003”, was referred to the Senate on 9-11-03, a rather fitting date to address the problems of fallen Americans. It’s curious that vast majority of Congressmen who’ve sponsored these Bills are Democrats, yet Max Baucus, “Montana Veterans’ Senator” has ignored my pleas while Conrad Burns and Denny Rehberg have helped dispel the cloud of Cold War Secrecy and acquire critical data.

I’m just one of at least six Montana SHAD/112 Veterans, four from the Flathead Valley. Furthermore, of the 504,047 Gulf War I Veterans eligible for VA benefits, 149,094 (29%) are now considered disabled by the VA since the start of Gulf War I, many for illnesses due to Bio-Chemical and Depleted Uranium exposures in Iraq. More than 9,600 Gulf War I veterans have died. Please urge your Congressmen to resolve this impasse.

My Sincere Thanks on Behalf of the SHAD/112 Veterans Nationwide,

J.B. Stone, ETN-2, USN, Project SHAD 1969
900 Wisconsin Avenue, Whitefish, Montana 59937
406-862-7514, 862-8739 - message

http://groups.msn.com/TinksSpace/projec ... 5495386572

~~~~~~

Toxic Tugs - Public Poisons
by J.B. Stone - 04/17/02

What do Maryland, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Johnston Atoll, and the Marshall Islands have in common?

BioChemical warfare tests were conducted in all of them behind a blinding haze of Cold War secrecy. And hardly a word of warning was ever issued, before during, or afterward the test conductors, subjects, or citizens living in surrounding areas.

Marine jets and Army artillery sprayed "harmless simulants" and live biological and chemical agents on unsuspecting citizens for 15 years on land and sea during Operation Deseret. The randomly selected human test rats onboard ships sailing with the USS Granville Hall, YAG-40, were largely unaware.

Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard & Defense) tested the Navy's ability to defend itself from gas or particle attacks by the enemy. But there weren’t any posters hanging in recruiter’s offices inviting Sailors to be used as dehumanized ciphers in scientific "research" projects. There were bigger fish to fry.

Navy ships sailing under Army orders and accompanied by 5 specially equipped Army tugboats waged their secret war from the balmy South Pacific to the chilly waters off Newfoundland. Night and day they’d pass through poisonous clouds up to a hundred miles long spread by Marine jets. The Deseret Test Center at Fort Douglas, Utah (Dugway Proving Ground) simply tested whatever the top-secret labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland could produce. Dugway dispatched the deadly materials to be tested in areas ranging from the remote Marshall Islands to as little as 50 miles West of San Francisco.

It’s not over.

Just last week they struck again. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported a contractor had unearthed leaking drums of suspected warfare agents while preparing structures for the National Missile Defense System. Most likely leftovers from the Gerstle River Project carried out at Fort Greely, linked to Project SHAD. Crewmen from Granville Hall's sister ship the USS George Eastman, YAG-39, were there in the 60’s, conducting cold-weather atmospheric tests to discover how best to distribute Anthrax spores, deadly VX & Sarin gas, and a vile assortment of highly contagious diseases.

Lax storage practices and non-existent environmental concern followed creating huge ecological disaster areas. Rockets and artillery shells filled with terminal cocktails were fired into Utah’s clear desert air and left to rust in Alaska's wilderness. No disclosure was forthcoming regarding long-range health effects of the test "conductors" or later inhabitants. Instead, those flatly ordered into these clandestine activities were coerced to sign documents stating they would never reveal their involvement in these toxic tests.

There’s more.

Long before the crew autopsied the caged monkeys that died on deck from nerve gas attacks in the South Pacific, these nondescript Liberty hulls had had huge “crow’s nests” installed on their masts. YAG-39 & 40 were contaminated in nuclear blasts from Bikini Atoll to the open ocean 450 miles Southwest of San Diego. They sailed through the radioactive fallout for a decade, collecting particles. Carcinogenic materials were used to wash down the outer surfaces of the vessels after every test. Crewmen who died from blood, bone and skin cancers came to the realization too late to take any protective measures. They had their orders and that was that.

Was anyone safe?

Surely you've heard of the Smithsonian Institution. But, I'd lay odds you’re unaware of the Smithsonian's Pacific Bird Project. Smithsonian contractors aboard the USNS Shearwater, accompanied by YAG-39 & 40 and the Army tugs, “collected" thousands upon thousands of migratory bird carcasses with 12 gauge shotguns fired by Navy crewmen. Over 2 million birds were banded and dusted down to see how far these "avian vectors" would transport deadly substances. Their instinctive navigational skills led to a greater than 90% accuracy for the proposed activities. Crewmen shot the boobies and gulls and gutted them on the helo deck for verification. They were safe from observation in idyllic spots like Christmas Island. Had anyone stumbled onto this chilling armada, those involved could offer little explanation. All communication between the various parties was discouraged and test results were closely guarded under the highest security measures. Now many of those present have permanently debilitating nerve, skin and respiratory conditions.

Not even Conscientious Objectors escaped. The "White Coats" of the Seventh day Adventist Church participated in 153 Army Germ warfare tests from 1954 to 1973. And, because they did not smoke, or drink alcohol or coffee, "They were a cleaner piece of paper on which to work an experiment," according to Richard O. Stenbakken, Adventist clergy armed forces supervisor.

Trained as medics at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, they were transferred to Fort Detrick, Maryland where they were expected to volunteer for at least one experiment. Open-air tests were carried out in the Utah desert using Q-Fever and other "simulants" to study Anthrax attacks. Otherwise they spent quality time in the "Eight Ball," a spherical chamber more than two stories tall at Fort Detrick. Scientists charged the chamber with bacteria and viruses where Operation White Coat test subjects wore breathing apparatus directly connected to the infected air.

It's been over 40 years since Project SHAD and the related tests began. The lid of secrecy has barely been lifted enough to allow a slender crack of light to shine on the truth. The DOD has only de-classified a handful of the 113 test series performed in Project SHAD. The VA knows there were 10,000 people to life-threatening substances, but they have declined to perform any active outreach program to notify them. This sad injustice is uncalled-for.

Why would the United States carry out such a hugely hideous plan, leaving behind hundreds of square miles of highly contaminated landscape spread across the Western Hemisphere and then just walk away from the physical and sociological devastation, leaving unsuspecting citizens to solve the problems on their own?

I don't know. I've been wondering for 30 years when and how the story will end. I was only 19 years old when I was assigned to the USS Granville S Hall in 1968. And it wasn’t my idea.

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/ethumancost/toxictugs.htm

[J.B. Stone]

I. HISTORY OF BIOLOGICAL WARFARE
USAMRIID

A. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The following events, some proved and some alleged, comprise a short history of biological warfare.

1346 The use of bacteriological agents in an armed conflict can be dated back to 1346, at Kaffa (now Feodossia) where the bodies of Tartar soldiers who succumbed to the plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged city. It is hypothesized by some medical historians that the action resulted in the infamous pandemic that spread over the entire continent of Europe from Genoa, via the Mediterranean ports.

1710 During the war between Russia and Sweden, Russian troops are said to have used the cadavers of plague victims to provoke an epidemic with the enemy.

1767 The French and Indian War was fought in North America between France and England during the period of 1754-1767. Both sides relied heavily on the support of Indian allies. The English attacked Ft. Carillon twice and were repulsed with heavy losses. An English general, Sir Jeffery Amherst, surreptitiously provided the Indians loyal to the French with blankets infected with smallpox virus. The resulting epidemic decimated the Indians. Shortly thereafter, General Amherst successfully attacked Ft. Carlillon and renamed it Ft. Ticonderoga. By deduction, the small pox epidemic played a significant role in the victory.

1917 In World War I, there is evidence that German agents inoculated horses and cattle with glanders disease in the United States before they were shipped to France. Although horsepower was a major component of logistics during World War I, the German use of BW obviously was not successful in altering the course of the war.

1930-1940 The years between World War I and World War II were quiet ones. Several studies were prepared on BW and military planners were divided on its usefulness. Major Leon Fox, U.S. Army Medical Corps, published a lengthy and defining report for the period which concluded that BW would not be effective because of modern sanitary procedures.

1937-1945 Japan Program

Japan started an ambitious BW program in 1937, 40 miles south of Harbin, Manchuria in a laboratory complex code named "Unit 731.� These studies continued until 1945 when General Ishii ordered the labs of Unit 731 burned to the ground. At the end of World War II, the United States granted amnesty to those Japanese scientists who had participated in the research. Amnesty was granted on one condition. These scientists had to disclose all information accumulated during their programs to the U.S. government. This situation probably developed from the post-war experience in Europe in which the U.S. and USSR competed for German rocket experts. Two Camp Detrick scientists, Dr. Edwin Hill and Dr. Joseph Victor, went to Japan in 1945 and interviewed 22 BW scientists. They brought back several large cases of information. This information was not particularly useful to the U.S. program because the data could not be quantitated. The list of organisms that received research effort during this program was not unlike present day shopping lists of potential BW agents; i.e., anthrax, tularemia, plague, botulism, small pox, glanders, typhoid, typhus, etc. Dr.Hill reported that based on his review, slightly less than l,OOO human autopsies had been performed at Unit 731, and that most of these were performed on humans exposed to aerosols of anthrax. In 1945, this BW program had stockpiled 400 kg of anthrax to be used in a specially designed fragmentation bomb. In 1940 in China and in Manchuria an epidemic of bubonic plague followed overflights by Japanese aircraft. Infected fleas were dropped together with grain which attracted the local rat population; in turn, the rats served as carriers for the infected fleas to the human population.

1943-1969 U.S. Offensive Program (See Section II)

1975-1983 Yellow Rain

Documented testimony indicated that the countries of Laos and Kampuchea were attacked by planes and helicopters delivering aerosols of several colors (yellow, green and white). Shortly after delivery, people and animals became disoriented, sick and a low percentage of those strickened, died. Somewhat later, similar clouds of aerosols were observed in Afghanistan. All these attacks have been lumped under the general category "YELLOW RAIN.� The trichothecene toxins (and most prominently, T-2 mycotoxin) are thought to comprise at least some of these clouds. Several prominent scientists believe that the United States did not prove the case of yellow rain being used in southeast Asia. One scientist in particular developed an hypothesis that defined these chemical attacks as being caused by swarms of defecating bees. Since impinger samplers were not present at the time of aerosol release, it was impossible to collect the necessary evidence that could establish a BW attack. Notwithstanding, the overwhelming data suggest the employment of toxins derived from biologically-grown microorganisms.

1978 A Bulgarian exile Georgi Markov was stabbed with a steel ball (attached on the end of an umbrella) packed with ricin while waiting on a bus in London on 7 September 1978. He died several days later. This incident represented the first case in recent history of state supported terrorism with a B/C agent.

1979 Sverdlovsk Incident

In late April, 1979, the city of Sverdlovsk experienced a loud explosion that was identified as originating from Military Compound 19. Several days later, residents downwind from this compound developed high fever and difficult breathing. Over the next several days, more cases were reported and fatalities rose sharply to around 40. Autopsies revealed severe pulmonary edema in addition to symptoms of serious toxemia. Local doctors announced an outbreak of pulmonary anthrax. On the other hand, government officials reported that the outbreak was caused by the illegal sale of contaminated meat from a cow suffering from the disease. Case fatalities did not display the symptoms of the usual gastric or skin anthrax, which would be more likely if contaminated beef had been handled or eaten. A nine story hospital was taken over by the military to handle exclusively the victims of the explosion. Vaccination and antibiotics were provided to patients and residents alike. The final death toll was estimated between 200 to 1,000. The victims were buried with special sanitary recautions, and relatives were not allowed to attend the funerals. Some western scientists, including those that doubted the evidence in Southeast Asia, accepted the explanation provided by the Soviet Ministry of Health. The Sverdlovsk incident remained unproven; yet all evidence available to the U.S. Government indicated that a massive accident had occurred at a BW production facility. Believers and non-believers of the Soviet explanation remained in a status quo situation until President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged in a press conference, prior to meeting with President Bush in the summer of 1992, Washington, D.C., that the Sverdlovsk incident was in fact a massive BW accident involving an aerosol of anthrax spores.

1991-1992 Presumptive evidence acquired by United Nations BW Inspection Team indicates that Iraq could have been in the early stages of developing an offensive BW capability. On-site inspections revealed several laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment that could have been used for agent production. No evidence, to date, has been established for munitions development and/or agent weaponization. The experience of the U.N. team emphasizes the difficulty of locating a �Smoking Gun� relative to BW programs. This type of program is much easier to hide from inspection than either chemical or nuclear programs.

B. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE U. S . OFFENSIVE PROGRAM

The United States initiated a review of the potential of BW in 1941-1942, implemented a program in 1943 and had established its feasibility by 1969. In 1969, President Nixon disestablished offensive studies including the destruction of all stock piles of agents and munitions. As important events of this program are to be described, the political climate in which the program was implemented must be considered. The policy of the United States was first and foremost to deter its use against U.S. forces, and secondarily to retaliate if deterrence failed. When the BW program was established, the United States was fighting World War II on two fronts, Europe and Asia. When World War II ended, a cold war developed in which the security of the country was still threatened. The tempo of world attitudes and times have changed significantly in the 23 years following the elimination of U.S. BW programs. Because a potential BW threat still exists, the U.S. maintains a defensive BW program.

1941 Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to appoint a committee to survey the feasibility of BW. Scattered intelligence reports indicated that Germany and Japan might be preparing for BW.

1942 NAS committee concluded that BW might be feasible and recommended that steps be taken to reduce U.S. vulnerability to BW attack. A civilian agency, the War Reserve Service (WRS) was formed under the direction of George W. Merk, of the Merk Company, a pharmaceutical firm. The WRS soon concluded that pertinent information could not be gotten without large scale developmental operations. The Chemical Warfare Service (later designated Army Chemical Corps) was asked to assume responsibility for large scale activities including the construction and operation of laboratories and pilot plants. The Army chose Camp Detrick, Frederick, Maryland, a small National Guard airfield, as the site for research and development.

1943 Camp Detrick becomes operational as the parent research and pilot plant center with about 4000 personnel: 2800 were Army, about 1000 Navy and the remaining 100 civilian. Field testing facilities were established in Mississippi.

1944 Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah was established as the test center and replaced the facility in Mississippi. Production plant was constructed in Terre Haute, Indiana which never became operational with pathogens. The
plant lacked sufficient engineering safety controls during the fermentation and processing of the simulant, Bacillus globigii (BG). High levels of BG spores were found throughout the plant during operations.

1945-1949 At the end of World War II, construction activities and the testing programs were terminated. All activities gradually phased down to a research status. The production plant in Indiana was sold to Charles A. Pfizer for commercial use.

In 1946, the War Department released to the nation and world that the United States had worked on BW. The release stated, in part: all work on biological warfare carried on in the United States, extreme care was taken to protect the participating personnel from infection. Many new techniques were devised to prevent infection and proved highly successful. Hospitals and dispensaries were maintained at all installations, staffed with both Army and Navy personnel and were equipped to treat accidental infections. As the result of the extraordinary precautions taken, there occurred only sixty cases of proven infection caused by accidental exposure to virulent biological warfare agents which required treatment. Fifty-two of these recovered completely; of the eight cases remaining, all are recovering satisfactorily. There were, in addition to the sixty proven cases, 159 accidental exposures to agents of unknown concentrations. All but one of these received prompt treatment and did not develop any infection. In one instance, the individual did not report exposure, developed the disease, but recovered after treatment. Mr. Merck in his final report to the Secretary of War noted that although remarkable achievements had been made, the potential of BW had by no means been completely measured. He recommended that the program be continued on a sufficient scale to provide an adequate defense.

In the 1947-1949 period small scale outdoor testing was conducted at Camp Detrick using two biological simulants, Bacillus globigii (BG), a spore forming microorganism, and Serratia marscens (SM), a vegetative organism. Both simulants were considered to be totally harmless by medical and scientific experts.

In 1949, an enclosed one million liter test sphere was built of steel at Camp Detrick and BW explosive munitions tests with pathogens were started.

1950 The BW program was expanded during the Korean War years and spurred efforts to again develop a BW retaliatory capability based on the threat of USSR involvement. Expansion plans were kept highly secret.

1951 The first limited BW retaliatory capability was achieved when an anticrop bomb was developed, tested and placed in production for the Air Force. Anticrop agent production sites were carefully selected for safety with the coordination and approval of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Construction of a BW bacterial production facility was started at Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA), Arkansas.

1953 Major research facilities were constructed to support the expanded R&D program at Camp Detrick. These new laboratories were built to much higher standards of safety than the temporary building constructed during World War II.

With the expansion of the BW retaliatory program, there was a significant increase in defensive studies; i.e., the research program against BW was almost doubled. Data were obtained on personnel protection, econtamination and immunization. Early detection research and alarm systems were initiated but progress was slow then and remains slow today because of the complexity of the technical problems.

1954 PBA production facility becomes operations to meet estimated requirements.

Production of hardware for antipersonnel BW agent cluster bombs delivered to PBA for filling with Brucella suis to support Air Force requirements.

1955 Large scale production of Francisella tularemia was established at PBA.

1956 Marshal Zhukov announces to the Soviet Congress that BW and CW weapons would be used by their armed forces for mass destruction in future wars. U.S. BW/CW policy was reviewed and effort to increase our military effectiveness was implemented.

Camp Detrick became Fort Detrick on 3 February 1956.

The decision to use BW or CW was reserved for the President.

1959 The Chemical Corps mission reached a height of emphasis unprecedented since World War II. The Military Services were submitting requirements for BW munitions, which included dissemination means for artillery, missiles, drones and other lesser weapon systems.

1960 Congress becomes interested in CBR disarmament and holds extensive hearings on the subject. Stimulated by this initiative, the Department of Defense conducted detailed studies concluding that through 1970 no single inspection procedure or combination of procedures were available that would offer a high level of assurance against militarily significant violations of BW arms limitations. Moreover, there was no inspection procedure that would insure against clandestine use of these weapons.

1961 The Kennedy Administration called for a thorough reassessment of BW by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), considering all possible applications including its use as an alternative to nuclear weapons. This project number, Number 112, was one of about 150 projects the new defense leaders were emphasizing. The recommendations of Project 112 would serve as a basis for R&D expansion through 1967.

1962 Desert Test Center (DTC) was established at Ft. Douglas, Salt Lake city, Utah and had as its mission the testing of biological weapons and defense systems at extra-continental test sites. DTC, while reporting to the Army Chief Chemical Officer, had to obtain approval by the JCS for conduct of tests which included materiel, personnel and funds.


[PLEASE SEE THE HISTORY OF BIO-CHEMICAL WARFARE THREAD ON THIS WEBSITE]

1964-1966 Virus and Rickettsiae Production plant build at PBA. Plant processes were based on the inoculation, harvesting and processing of infected embryonated chicken eggs.

Large-scale freeze drying and spray drying systems built and became operational at PBA.

Entomology capability acquired at PBA in 1965. Plant was never operated in a "hot" mode.

By end of 1966, production facilities were all now fully operational and the BW plants produced several agents. Various types of munition hardware were delivered to PBA, filled and stored there. These munitions were never shipped anywhere except for test purposes.

In June, 1966, vulnerability of U.S. cities to covert BW attack was demonstrated in New York City subway system. This test has received considerable publicity in the news media. The harmless simulant BG was disseminated within the subway tubes and from the street into the subway stations. The simulant data, when translated into equivalent covert attacks with pathogenic agents during peak traffic periods indicated that large
numbers of people could be exposed to infectious doses.

1967 With the need for increasing money to support the U.S. Army's increased involvement in the Vietnam War as well as the mounting efforts in the United Nations to achieve some sort of disarmament agreement in BW/CW, the BW program experienced its first cut in monies. The program continued to experience program cuts in 1968 and 1969. During the latter half of 1968 and throughout 1969, various peace organizations sent their people to picket Ft. Detrick. A long line of pickets, 50 to 100 people, in single file would stand at the front gate of Ft. Detrick each morning (7:30-10:00 am) to greet R&D personnel coming to work.

1959-1969 The Golden Years

The last 10 years of the offensive research and development were "golden" in that a substantial number of scientific advances were made. These advances provided a base of technical information on which it was concluded that biological warfare was eminently feasible with one caveat: the employment of BW was dependent upon careful preplanning. A few of the scientific advances that made this possible are defined in generic terms. Large scale fermentation of pathogenic microorganisms was achieved and could be done safely. Large scale technology was developed for purifying and concentrating bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae and their metabolic by products (toxins). Technology was developed for stabilizing both liquid and dry agents. Stabilization included preservation of the agent at logistical temperatures as well as protecting the agent during aerosol dissemination and cloud aging, and over a wide range of environmental conditions. A variety of munitions were developed that were capable of disseminating agents (liquid and dry products) at high levels of efficiency and in the optimum particle size. The modern principles of biosafety and containment were established by Ft.Detrick scientists, and one in particular is noteworthy, Arnold G. Wedum, M.D., Ph.D.

1969 President Nixon visited Ft. Detrick on 25 November 1969 and announced a new national policy on BW:

"The U.S. shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures. Since President Nixon did not specify "toxins" in his announcement, the scientists at Ft. Detrick, not wanting to loose their jobs and believing that a loophole had been provided to continue BW studies, rewrote their research plans, changing the direction of their research from agents to toxins. This plan of action, so logical and satisfying to the psyche at the time, did not work as noted below.

1970 President Nixon further defined U.S. National Policy on BW in a statement dated 14 February 1970: The United States will confine its military programs for toxins, whether produced by bacteriological or any other biological method or by chemical synthesis, to research for defensive purposes only, such as to improve techniques of immunization and medical therapy.

1970-1972 Total destruction of antipersonnel BW agent stocks and munitions were accomplished between 10 May 1971 and 1 May 1972. The BW plant facilities at PBA were decontaminated and turned over to the Food and Drug Administration. The offensive research program was also terminated in 1970 with a complete inventory of all BW material at Ft. Detrick and Dugway Proving Ground, and destruction of all items except those essential to defensive BW research. Several R&D facilities at Ft. Detrick were decontaminated and leased to the National Cancer Institute and the Army's Health Services command. The formal transfer was completed in 1977. The BW defense program (other than medical defensive studies) was transferred to Edgewood Arsenal.

1975 President Ford signed the Biological Weapons Convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons on 22 January 1975.

C. SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: HISTORY OF THE U. S. ARMY MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Early Years

1950-1954 Several years before any formal arrangements were made, the Surgeon General was concerned about medical defensive problems and a single medical officer from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), LTC Abram S. Beneson, was appointed as a medical liaison officer with the Biological Warfare laboratories at Ft. Detrick. Later a Joint agreement was signed and studies on medical defense against biological weapons were conducted cooperatively by the Chemical Corps and the Army Medical Department. During these early years, a Congressionally approved medical volunteer program designated Project Whitecoat was worked-out in 1954 following a series of meetings with representatives of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Surgeon General of the Army.

1956 USAMRIID, then known as the Army Medical Unit under the direction of the Army Surgeon General, began formal operations in 1956 under the command of Colonel W. D. Tigertt. One of the Unit�s first responsibilities was to serve as principal investigator managing all aspects of Project CD-22, the exposure of volunteers to aerosols containing a highly pathogenic strain of Coxiella burnetii, the etiologic agent of Q fever. These pioneering studies demonstrated that man was susceptible to as few as ten guinea pig doses when delivered as a small particle aerosol (1 to 5 microns). The sick volunteers were closely monitored and antibiotic therapy was administered when appropriate. All volunteers completely recovered from Q fever with no adverse after effects.

1957 Investigational new drug (IND) submitted on behalf of the killed Q fever vaccine.

1961 Colonel Dan Crozier assumed command. He was heavily involved in the planning and construction of the present laboratories�which rank among the most advanced in the world. During his command, construction of the new laboratory building began with ground breaking in 1967. Personnel moved into Phase I of the building in 1971 and Phase II in 1972. Killed and live attenuated tularemia vaccines were tested in volunteers using virulent aerosol challenge. This study was particularly significant in that it demonstrated that multiple doses of killed vaccine was not effective in protecting against a small particle aerosol challenge. The live attenuated (LVS) vaccine was highly effective; albeit, the data suggested that protection should be overcome with larger doses of virulent organisms. Since this initial study was accomplished, similar evidence has been established that live, not killed, vaccines are protective against aerosol challenge with different organisms. These latter studies have used primates rather than volunteers.

1965 IND submission for the TC-83 live attenuated Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis (VEE) vaccine was made.

1967 IND submission for killed Eastern equine encephalitis vaccine was made.

1968 IND submission for killed Western equine encephalitis vaccine was made.

1969 With the disestablishment of the Biological Warfare Laboratories, the Institute underwent a formal name change from the Medical Unit to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Although the Institute's mission did not change, it received additional funding and personnel authorizations to hire biolaboratory scientists who were losing their jobs as a result of the termination of offensive BW studies.

The formal mission tasking USAMRIID reads as follows: "Performs studies on the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prophylaxis, treatment, and epidemiology of naturally occurring infectious diseases of military importance with emphasis on problems associated with the medical defense against biological agents and on those microorganisms which require special containment facilities." By DOD directive and further Army guidance, USAMRIID performs its Biological Agent Medical Defense research in support of the needs of the three services. This mission, and all work done at USAMRIID, is in keeping with the spirit and letter of both President Nixon's 1969 and 1970 Executive Orders renouncing the use of biological and toxin weapons, and the U.N. Convention (Against)� Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons�of 1972. IND submission of killed Chikungunya vaccine was made.

1972 The Institute received the U.S. Department Superior Service Award. The award reads: "For contributing to the achievement of the VEE task force recognized for excellence, creative leadership, dedication and sacrifice in cooperative state/federal service to agriculture and the nation in averting a major animal disease (Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis) epidemic and agribusiness disaster."

1973 Colonel Joseph Metzger assumed command of USAMRIID, succeeding BG Kenneth Dirks, whose command spanned only a few months. During COL Metzger's command, research priorities were devoted to the development of vaccines and therapeutic modalities against rickettsiae in general, and Coxiella burnetii in particular.

1977 Colonel Richard F. Barquist assumed Command. Under his direction, research programs were implemented or expanded on Argentinean, Korean and Bolivian hemorrhagic fevers, Lassa fever and other unique diseases that could pose potential BW threats as well as affecting rapid deployment forces. These high hazard agents required special BL-4 (P-4) containment facilities in order that they may be studied safely. USAMRIID continues to be one of the few laboratories in the free world where research can be conducted on such virulent organisms with minimum risk to laboratory personnel and no risk to the surrounding environment. The thrust of the research was to develop vaccines and therapeutic measures as well as to develop an understanding the disease progression in appropriate animal models.

1978 The Institute became involved in a severe outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF) which occurred for the first time in Egypt. A large supply of the Institute's stock of RVF vaccine was sent to Egypt to help control the epidemic which involved thousands of human cases and the death of large numbers of livestock. USAMRIID investigators also provided a critical diagnostic capability. Priority was then given to the production of 300,000 doses of new vaccine to replenish depleted stocks. USAMRIID competed against 41 other R&D laboratories throughout the Army and won the coveted award "Best Laboratory" or "Laboratory of the Year" award.

USAMRIID was judged to be the Number One laboratory in the In-house Laboratory Independent Research Program (ILIR) and received a $50,000 bonus to expand its ILIR research. ILIR monies come directly from the Secretary of the Army to the Laboratory Commander (not though regular Army money channels) to fund research which, if successful, will have a major impact on the laboratory mission. ILIR funds are allotted to the participating laboratory on the basis of competition with other R&D Army laboratories.

1979 The Institute acquired fixed and transportable P-4 containment plastic human isolators for the hospital care and safe transport of patients suffering from highly contagious and often lethal infections. A formal agreement was signed with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia to house and treat high hazard infections in their personnel, should they occur.

1980 A new program was initiated on Legionella pneumophilia at the urging of some medical authorities. Almost one year later, a panel of experts decided that this organism did not have potential as a BW agent. This dichotomy of expert opinion on what constitutes a BW agent illustrates the problem of developing a medical defensive program. (Editorial comment: Since 1989, there have been an improvement in defining BW threat agents, and medical defensive studies have responded in kind.) Following the Sverdlovsk accident in 1979, a new program was undertaken to improve the current anthrax vaccine, and to develop new information on the pathogenesis of the disease. A new research program was initiated to study tricothecene fungal toxins, marine toxins and other small molecular weight toxins of microbial origin. This new program required a reorganization of personnel and a reordering of priorities in order to be implemented.

1982 New diagnostic methods for several organisms were developed using ELISA technology and the production of new diagnostic reagents including the extensive use of monoclonal antibodies. USAMRIID was selected as winner of the "Laboratory of the Year Award" in competition with all other U.S. Army R&D laboratories. USAMRIID was selected as the top Army laboratory in the ILIR competition and received a bonus of $100,000 to be applied to future ILIR studies. A new course entitled, "Medical Defense Against Biological Agents," was introduced. The course was designed to familiarize military physicians, nurses and support personnel with the special problems posed by BW. This course is the one you now attend with some changes in format.

1983 Colonel David L. Huxsoll became Commander and under his leadership the institute was to experience unparalleled growth in resources� manpower, money, equipment and facilities. The mission statement of the institute was changed to read "USAMRIID develops strategies, products, information, procedures and training for
medical defense against biological warfare agents and naturally occurring infectious agents of military importance that require special containment." The Institute's military personnel were organized into 32 biologic/toxin rapid deployment response teams (each team composed of specialist) prepared to support U.S. Forces should situations develop where BW contamination has occurred or is suspected of having occurred.

1985-1990 The Deputy Chief of Staff, Army, (General Maxwell Thurmond conducted a Functional Area Assessment (FAA) on the biological threat posed to U.S. Forces. The USAMRIID commander played a key role in this briefing. General Thurmond became concerned about the BW threats particularly, the application of genetic engineering technology to alter conventional microorganisms and his FAA review resulted in a five year plan of expansion for medical defensive measures. The 1985 in-house budget of 34 million dollars was to expand to 45 million dollars the next year and was eventually scheduled to reach 93.2 million in-house dollars by 1989, in incremental steps. Twenty-three additional civilian allotments were authorized in 1985 with 275 additional allotments to be added in increments in the succeeding years. The medical contract or extramural programs also received additional resources. Not only did medical defensive measures receive additional funds, but physical defensive funds also significantly increased. The need for a physical detection system to identify an aerosol of infectious agent became apparent. Lack of such a system represented one of the major technical deficiencies that required immediate attention. The USAMRIID expanded program was designed to continue to address conventional threat organisms, and also to implement several new programs on toxins as well as genetically-altered organisms and carriers. Additional laboratory facilities would be required to support the expanded program: the establishment of a contractor owned-contractor operated (COCO) facility to support major laboratory and administrative requirements was considered; and an MCA project to renovate Building 1412 was placed in readiness.

1986 New toxin program established following the 5 year expansion plan.

l987 The USAMRIID program of expansion set-forth by the FAA in 1985 never materialized. The Army experienced several budget cuts and these were passed-on through channels to the Institute. The toxin laboratory was not built, but Building 1412 was upgraded and additional office space for the professional staff was obtained.

1988-1989 The Investigative Years
The FAA described above provided increased resources to the Biological Warfare Defense Program, not in the amounts originally planned, but the increases were real. The FAA also resulted in an increased awareness by The Congress on how these funds were being spend. No longer was biological warfare defense a quiet area of the DOD budget. Even though by 1988, USAMRIID was actually undergoing cuts in its in-house and extramural programs, USAMRIID came under close scrutiny by several Congressional Committees. For example, the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, chaired by Senator Carl Levin, issued a report quite critical in the DOD's management of biological safety issues in the CBW programs. (Editorial comment: Biological safety is addressed in detail in the "Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement," for the Biological Defense Research Program (1989). Senator John Glenn, Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs asked the
Government Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate the validity of DOD's Biological Defense Research Program. The GAO issued a critical report that concluded the Army spent funds on R&D efforts that did not address validated BW threats and may have duplicated the research efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. (Editorial comment: As long as the Biological Warfare Laboratories were active, USAMRIID's role was fairly simple. The Institute developed vaccines and treatment modalities in response to agents that received priority study in the offensive program. This relationship changed in 1969 with the termination of offensive studies. Subsequently, medical defense against BW became a quiet area of attention and low priority. Little or no intelligence resources were assigned to the BW problem since 92 nations had signed the treaty banning BW. USAMRIID filled this void by conducting studies on several classes of organisms, all of which contained members with some level of BW potential.)

1990-1991 Colonel Ronald G. Williams assumed command of the Institute during the period of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Although BW was not used by Iraq during the Gulf War, USAMRIID provided timely advice and products to insure an effective medical response if a medical defense were required. USAMRIID scientists trained and equipped six special laboratory teams for rapid identification of potential BW agents. Vaccines and drugs were deployed in the field to combat infectious diseases that have historically taken the greatest tolls on every battlefield. Following the war, USAMRIID physicians and engineers were key members of a United Nations Special Commission Inspection Team that evaluated the BW capabilities in Iraq.

1992 Colonel Ernest T. Takafuji assumed command of USAMRIID in September of 1992.

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/biowar.htm

[J.B. Stone]

PROJECT 112, THE GERSTLE RIVER PROJECT, FORT GREELEY ALASKA:

'In the early 1970's, the Gerstle River Test Site at Fort Greely became a matter of controversy for Alaskan politicians in Washington, D.C. The discovery that the U.S. Army had conducted chemical and biological tests at Fort Greely initiated an intense investigation. Numerous articles appeared in local papers, federal releases, and national television accusing the U.S. Army of being responsible for the deaths of various animals in Delta Junction, Alaska, approximately 10 miles from Fort Greely. Newspaper articles also accused the U.S. Army of being responsible for the paralysis of two children in Fairbanks, Alaska, and an outbreak of tularemia in Vermont in 1968, in addition to many other accusations. There has been no evidence or scientific proof to link the Alaska tests with any of the above accusations'. Old habits die hard and once again people are asking for explanations.

'Earth-covered ammunition storage magazines are overgrown with natural grasses, Kentucky Bluegrass, and Artca Red Fescue. The goal is to camouflage the nature of the facility from aerial observation and four or five more years of undisturbed growth will complete the program'. And yet, '..the Team cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data'. How can anyone be sure that all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons have been removed from the area. They can not, nor do they care to find out. Many of the symptoms I experience are the same symptoms experienced by the Gulf War Veterans, yet I was never there. Before moving to Ft. Greely I was an extremely healthy and vibrant person who never had any need to visit a physician. Now I am a sick 29 year old housewife and mother of four. Shall I, like a hypocrite, go with my family to church every Sunday and turn my back on this issue? To the contrary, every stone must be overturned. This type of knowledge requires responsibility and is an extremely delicate matter. Before her transfer back to the lower 48, my girlfriend confided that she had ovarian cancer. She told me that it had spread so quickly that she had only months to live. Her face of anguish haunts me. My husband, John, has for many years now discouraged me from trying to find out exactly what happened on Ft. Greely. He is a veteran and the idea that the military would do anything like this is almost like blasphemy to him. As a patriotic American, it is not my intention to disgrace the military in any way, rather, as a Christian woman, I feel a moral obligation to have this matter addressed and investigated further.

It is especially important that the military be held accountable before they pull out in the year 2001 and leave the Delta Junction community and the state of Alaska with this mess. Up to this date they have not been forthright in their findings concerning the human health situation and environmental contamination. Those who passed through Fort Greely may be suffering and dying without even realizing why.

Don Jenkins recalls, "Come to think of it, that is all we ever treated people on Greely for: headache and nausea with accompanying flu like symptoms. Besides that, we treated soldiers for broken bones which were the result of training exercises. For a three month period of time we had a real problem on Greely and were very worried. Everyone was coming in with these symptoms. We did not treat them, just ensured they did not become dehydrated."

Mr. Jenkins is extremely ill these days. He served his nation in the Gulf and then on Greely. Don was told that he is by far the sickest man to come out of the Fox Trot 122 Main Support Battalion and it is no wonder. The variety of symptoms he experiences include: gastrointestinal problems, loose bowel syndrome, headaches, chronic fatigue, swelling of lymph nodes with those on the right side of his neck very pronounced, respiratory problems, extreme joint pain and weakness, and stabbing pains due to noticeable liver swelling. For his meritorious duty, he has been rewarded with slaps in the face by our government and has no cheek left to turn.

John Vitek also has the Gulf War Syndrome. His stay on Greely had been brief. John has been consulting physicians ever since returning from Alaska for aches in his joints, muscle spasms, headaches, memory loss, ringing in the ears and stiff necks due to lymph node swelling . No one has been able to diagnose him. After relaying this information to him, he said, "Thank you. It is such a comfort to know why I am ill. Thank you so much".

Heather Breece still experiences chronic fatigue and just feels sick all of the time.

Jason Kelly said, "One thing I do recall about my health on Ft. Greely is that I was always tired and worn down. All day long in the clinic I felt tired and worn down. I always remember that". After Jason left Ft. Greely, he returned to feeling healthy again.

My husband, John received 12 hours of sleep a night while on Ft. Greely and never woke up feeling refreshed. Today he is in good health.

The U.S. Army may have slowed me down by inflicting this disease upon me, but I have not been stopped, nor will I stop until their reckless actions of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons testing have been stopped. How many times must the face of humanity be slapped before he rises up and cries, "JUSTICE!"? America, we lived and worked on a nuclear, chemical and biological weapons playground. Today many of us are ill. It is just this simple. Our government has perpetrated The Gulf War Illness upon this nation's people. Today I am calling for a revolution of Truth in this country. I am calling every good American to arms. Arm yourself with Truth. Truth is our government's greatest enemy. Truth shall prevail every time. It is only when we are once again armed with Truth that our nation will be great. As these words leave you now, sing to yourself the words of "America the Beautiful"… and weep.

UPDATE: After contacting Laura Cuozzo and realizing that innocent people were still being subjected to the aftereffects of nuclear, chemical and biological testing, I was contacted by representatives of the Canadian Parliament. They are now asking serious questions involving the experiments, which may have a direct effect on the caribou migration into Alaska and throughout the northwest. To satisfy my curiosity about the health effects on the civilian residents of Delta Junction, I contacted Delta Junction City Hall, the Public Health Nurse, the one local physician and several others. They confirmed to me that the incidence of rare tumors and cancers appears to be much higher than that found in the general population. Bolio Lake no longer has any fish in it and several areas on the base are totally off limits.

It is because of the real American Patriot's such as Laura Cuozzo and magazines like the Free American that we are still able to disclose information vital to the health and well being of all Liberty loving Americans. We must be our own advocates and research these issues as if our very lives depend upon them---BECAUSE THEY DO. We have heard ad nauseam of the experiments conducted on unwitting American children, the mentally retarded, prisoners and also the military. It is time the experiments be revealed, individuals be justly compensated and prosecution be pursued with regard to those who have perpetrated these illnesses and diseases on the very people the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the Nuremberg Code was designed to protect.

If you have information on this or any other experiments regarding nuclear, biological or chemical testing, please contact the American Gulf War Veterans Association:

3506 Highway 6 So. #117, Sugarland, Tx. 77478-4401, 1-800-231-7631

There can be a million lies; there is only one truth. We will continue to bring you the truth.

For God and Country,

Joyce Riley vonKleist & Dave vonKleist

FROM: 40 Years of Government Sponsored Ecological Terrorism

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/greely.htm

Joyce Riley vonKleist, RN BSN

Captain, USAF, inactive reserve

When beginning an investigation of any kind, one must accept the inevitability that when going through the process of "leaving no stone unturned", the resulting scatter of insects lead to other stones. Such is the case when it comes to the investigation of nuclear, chemical and biological exposures and the research and development of these insidious weapons of mass destruction.

While researching the history behind the Gulf War experiments, I have been stunned almost on a daily basis by the revelations of other experiments conducted by the Department of Defense and the CIA on the American civilian and military population. Our most recent discovery is the that the Department of the Army was conducting biological, chemical and nuclear experiments at Ft. Greeley, Alaska and the town of Delta Junction, Alaska.

The documentation for the information that follows was taken from a 60-page report that included maps, photos and charts I received in a brown manila envelope entitled:

INSTALLATION ASSESSMENT OF GERSTLE RIVER TEST SITE:
RECORDS EVALUATION REPORT NO. 105, VOLUME 1
December 1976
Department of the Army Office of the Project Manager for
Chemical Demilitarization and Installation Restoration
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland 21010

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

~~~~~~~~

INSTALLATION ASSESSMENT OF GERSTLE RIVER TEST SITE

RECORDS EVALUATION REPORT NO. 105
VOLUME 1



DECEMBER 1976

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
OFFICE OF THE PROJECT MANAGER
FOR
CHEMICAL DEMILITARIZATION AND INSTALLATION RESTORATION
ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MARYLAND 21010

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Records Research Team wishes to thank the various military and civilian agencies that have cooperated with it and provided the information contained herein. In particular, the cooperation of the present and former employees at Fort Greely is especially appreciated.

A special note of thanks is extended to Captain James Verney and Captain David Moss, of the U.S.A. Cold Regions Test Center, who served as points of contact for this assessment. They provided excellent liaison, working closely with the Team in arranging interviews and in locating the documents needed for assessment.

Appreciation is also given to Mr. Bert Johns, of Dugway Proving Ground, who accompanied the Team to Fort Greely. He was in charge of test operations for Deseret Test Center from 1962 to 1967 and had intimate knowledge of test and surveillance operations conducted at the Gerstle River Test Site during this period.

i

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

During August 1976, a Records Research (R/R) study was conducted at Fort Greely to estimate possible contamination at the Gerstle River Test Site by chemical, biological, and radiological material, and to assess the possibility of contaminants migrating beyond the boundaries of the installation

As a result of the records search survey, it was discovered that the same organization which conducted the chemical agent tests at the Gerstle River area also conducted biological agent tests at the Delta Creek area of Fort Greely, Alaska. It was decided to include the Delta Creek data in this report so that it could be permanently documented.

The approach used by the R/R Team included (1) the evaluation of available documents on the operations at the Gerstle River Test Site and a literature search conducted at other Government agencies including the Department of Defense Explosive Safety Board (DDESB), the U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency (AEHA), the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Defense Documentation Center (DDC), and the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), and (2) interviews with key personnel including present and former employees of U.S. Army Cold Regions Test Center (CRTC) Fort Greely and Dugway Proving Ground.

Findings

Based on the evaluation of available information, the following findings are presented:

1. The records and personnel interviews indicate that contaminant migration at the Gerstle River Test Site is not a problem since (a) the decontamination procedures used before burial of scrap test materials were thorough and complete, and (b) the soil and moisture characteristics at the site are such that even if contaminants were present, leaching of contaminants into the groundwater is unlikely. The Test Site is located in a remote area with no adjacent home sites. The land is unsuitable for agricultural purposes.

2. Records covering incoming material for the 1953 - 1958 time frame are incomplete. An accurate accounting on all material shipped into the Gerstle River area for function and surveillance testing is not available. However, interviews with responsible personnel indicate that all munitions subjected to surveillance testing were properly demilitarized. Although all rounds drawn for functional tests were reportedly accounted for with the possible exception of one 155mm round, it is considered possible that other unexploded ordnance munitions and submunitions may be found at the Gerstle River Test Site.

ii

3. The records indicate that the Gerstle River Test Site is not contaminated by radiological or biological agent materials. A deep well was prepared and instrumented for use as a radiological material disposal well, but it was never used for this purpose.

4. Two fenced disposal pits are located in the Gerstle River Test Site. These pits were opened in 1970 and contain residue and removed from all known disposal pits in the Gerstle River area. The pits were closed in 1971 after receiving scrap material from pits near Blueberry Lake. Over 400 truckloads of material (dirt plus refuse) were placed in the two pits. Refuse included scrap metal, test vehicles. grid instrumentation, protective clothing, and uncontaminated garbage. The refuse was decontaminated by incineration and chemical treatment before burial.

5. The records indicate that the Delta Creek area of Fort Greely was used for biological agent testing from 1962 through 1967. Ecological studies were conducted at Delta Creek after testing was completed to assure that active biological materials did not remain at the site,

Conclusion

Based on available records, it is concluded that a preliminary survey of the Gerstle River Test Site is not required.

Recommendations

Whether or not the property is retained, consideration should be given to opening the two disposal pits at the Gerstle River Test Site, examining the decontaminated rubble, and moving it to Fort Greely for disposal in the normal manner prescribed for industrial waste. If the Gerstle River Test Site remains in Army possession, consideration should be given to the removal of the warning signs and fences around the pit areas since these only attract the attention of unauthorized curiosity seekers. The area perimeter fences should remain intact to discourage penetration of the area by unauthorized personnel.

Should it be decided to "excess" the Gerstle River Test Site property, it is recommended that the area be swept by an explosive ordnance disposal team to remove large shrapnel fragments and possible UXO’s. One 155 mm HE round was reported to have malfunctioned in this area and it is possible that other UXO’s are present since during one of the cleanup operations, three live rounds were discovered.

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/greely/greely.html

~~~~~~~~

103d Congress, 2d Session - COMMITTEE PRINT - S. Prt. 103-97

IS MILITARY RESEARCH HAZARDOUS TO VETERANS' HEALTH?

[DUH....DO CATS LICK FUR?]


LESSONS SPANNING HALF A CENTURY

A STAFF REPORT PREPARED FOR THE
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE
DECEMBER 8, 1994

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman

U.S. Senate,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
Washington, DC, December 8, 1994

During the last few years, the public has become aware of several examples where U.S. Government researchers intentionally exposed Americans to potentially dangerous substances without their knowledge or consent. The Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which I have been privileged to chair from 1993-94, has conducted a comprehensive analysis of the extent to which veterans participated in such research while they were serving in the U.S. military. This resulted in two hearings, on May 6, 1994, and August 5, 1994.

This report, written by the majority staff of the Committee, is the result of that comprehensive investigation, and is intended to provide information for future deliberations by the Congress. The findings and conclusions contained in this report are those of the majority staff and do not necessarily reflect the views of the members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

This report would not have been possible without the dedication and expertise of Dr. Patricia Olson, who, as a Congressional Science Fellow, worked tirelessly on this investigation and report, and the keen intelligence, energy, and commitment of Dr. Diana Zuckerman, who directed this effort.

John D. Rockefeller IV, Chairman

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CONTENTS

I. Introduction

II. Background

* A. Codes, declarations, and laws governing human experimentation
* B. Mustard gas and lewisite
* C. Seventh-Day Adventists
* D. Dugway Proving Ground
* E. Radiation exposure
* F. Hallucinogens
* G. Investigational drugs

III. Findings and conclusions

* A. For at least 50 years, DOD has intentionally exposed military personnel to potentially dangerous substances, often in secret
* B. DOD has repeatedly failed to comply with required ethical standards when using human subjects in military research during war or threat of war
* C. DOD incorrectly claims that since their goal was treatment, the use of investigational drugs in the Persian Gulf War was not research
* D. DOD used investigational drugs in the Persian Gulf War in ways that were not effective
* E. DOD did not know whether pyridostigmine bromide would be safe for use by U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf War
* F. When U.S. troops were sent to the Persian Gulf in 1994, DOD still did not have proof that pyridostigmine bromide was safe for use as an antidote enhancer
* G. Pyridostigmine may be more dangerous in combination with pesticides and other exposures
* H. The safety of the botulism vaccine was not established prior to the Persian Gulf War
* I. Records of anthrax vaccinations are not suitable to evaluate safety
* J. Army regulations exempt informed consent for volunteers in some types of military research
* K. DOD and DVA have repeatedly failed to provide information and medical follow-up to those who participate in military research or are ordered to take investigational drugs
* L. The Federal Government has failed to support scientific studies that provide information about the reproductive problems experienced by veterans who were intentionally exposed to potentially dangerous substances
* M. The Federal Government has failed to support scientific studies that provide timely information for compensation decisions regarding military personnel who were harmed by various exposures
* N. Participation in military research is rarely included in military medical records, making it impossible to support a veteran's claim for service-connected disabilities from military research
* O. DOD has demonstrated a pattern of misrepresenting the danger of various military exposures that continues today

IV. Recommendations

* A. Congress should deny the DOD request for a blanket waiver to use investigational drugs in case of war or threat of war
* B. FDA should reject any applications from DOD that do not include data on women, and long-term follow-up data
* C. Congress should authorize a centralized database for all federally funded experiments that utilize human subjects
* D. Congress should mandate all Federal agencies to declassify most documents on research involving human subjects
* E. Congress should reestablish a National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects
* F. VA and DOD should implement regular site visits to review Institutional Review Boards
* G. The Feres Doctrine should not be applied for military personnel who are harmed by inappropriate human experimentation when informed consent has not been given

Appendix -- Survey of 150 Persian Gulf War Veterans

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

IS MILITARY RESEARCH HAZARDOUS TO VETERANS' HEALTH? LESSONS SPANNING HALF A CENTURY

I. INTRODUCTION

During the last 50 years, hundreds of thousands of military personnel have been involved in human experimentation and other intentional exposures conducted by the Department of Defense (DOD), often without a servicemember's knowledge or consent. In some cases, soldiers who consented to serve as human subjects found themselves participating in experiments quite different from those described at the time they volunteered. For example, thousands of World War II veterans who originally volunteered to "test summer clothing" in exchange for extra leave time, found themselves in gas chambers testing the effects of mustard gas and lewisite. (Note 1) Additionally, soldiers were sometimes ordered by commanding officers to "volunteer" to participate in research or face dire consequences. For example, several Persian Gulf War veterans interviewed by Committee staff reported that they were ordered to take experimental vaccines during Operation Desert Shield or face prison. (Note 2)

The goals of many of the military experiments and exposures were very appropriate. For example, some experiments were intended to provide important information about how to protect U.S. troops from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons or other dangerous substances during wartime. In the Persian Gulf War, U.S. troops were intentionally exposed to an investigational vaccine that was intended to protect them against biological warfare, and they were given pyridostigmine bromide pills in an experimental protocol intended to protect them against chemical warfare.
However, some of the studies that have been conducted had more questionable motives. For example, the Department of Defense (DOD) conducted numerous "man-break" tests, exposing soldiers to chemical weapons in order to determine the exposure level that would cause a casualty, i.e., "break a man." (Note 3) Similarly, hundreds of soldiers were subjected to hallucinogens in experimental programs conducted by the DOD in participation with, or sponsored by, the CIA. (Note 4), (Note 5) These servicemembers often unwittingly participated as human subjects in tests for drugs intended for mind-control or behavior modification, often without their knowledge or consent. Although the ultimate goal of those experiments was to provide information that would help U.S. military and intelligence efforts, most Americans would agree that the use of soldiers as unwitting guinea pigs in experiments that were designed to harm them, at least temporarily, is not ethical.

Whether the goals of these experiments and exposures were worthy or not, these experiences put hundred of thousands of U.S. servicemembers at risk, and may have caused lasting harm to many individuals.

Every year, thousands of experiments utilizing human subjects are still being conducted by, or on behalf of, the DOD. Many of these ongoing experiments have very appropriate goals, such as obtaining information for preventing, diagnosing, and treating various diseases and disabilities acquired during military service. Although military personnel are the logical choice as human subjects for such research, it is questionable whether the military hierarchy allows for individuals in subordinate positions of power to refuse to participate in military experiments. It is also questionable whether those who participated as human subjects in military research were given adequate information to fully understand the potential benefits and risks of the experiments. Moreover, the evidence suggests that they have not been adequately monitored for adverse health effects after the experimental protocols end.

Veterans who become ill or disabled due to military service are eligible to receive priority access to medical care at VA medical facilities and to receive monthly compensation checks. In order to qualify, they must demonstrate that their illness or disability was associated with their military service. Veterans who did not know that they were exposed to dangerous substances while they were in the military, therefore, would not apply for or receive the medical care or compensation that they are entitled to. Moreover, even if they know about the exposure, it would be difficult or impossible to prove if the military has not kept adequate records. It is therefore crucial that the VA learn as much as possible about the potential exposures, and that the DOD assume responsibility for providing such information to veterans and to the VA.

II. BACKGROUND

A. CODES, DECLARATIONS, AND LAWS GOVERNING HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION

The Nuremberg Code is a 10-point declaration governing human experimentation, developed by the Allies after World War II in response to inhumane experiments conducted by Nazi scientists and physicians. The Code states that voluntary and informed consent is absolutely essential from all human subjects who participate in research, whether during war or peace. The Code states:

The person involved should have the legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject, there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health and person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiments. (Note 6)

There is no provision in the Nuremberg Code that allows a country to waive informed consent for military personnel or veterans who serve as human subjects in experiments during wartime or in experiments that are conducted because of threat of war. However, the DOD has recently argued that wartime experimental requirements differ from peacetime requirements for informed consent. According to the Pentagon, "In all peacetime applications, we believe strongly in informed consent and its ethical foundations.....But military combat is different." (Note 7) The DOD argued that informed consent should be waived for investigational drugs that could possibly save a soldier's life, avoid endangerment of the other personnel in his unit, and accomplish the combat mission.

More than a decade after the development of the Nuremberg Code, the World Medical Association prepared recommendations as a guide to doctors using human subjects in biomedical research. As a result, in 1964 the Eighteenth World Medical Assembly met in Helsinki, Finland, and adopted recommendations to be used as an ethical code by all medical doctors conducting biomedical research with human subjects. This code, referred to as the Declaration of Helsinki, was revised in 1975, 1983, and 1989. (Note It differs from the Nuremberg Code in certain important respects. The Declaration of Helsinki distinguishes between clinical (therapeutic) and nonclinical (nontherapeutic) biomedical research, and addresses "proxy consent" for human subjects who are legally incompetent, such as children or adults with severe physical or mental disabilities. (Note 9) Proxy consent for legally competent military personnel who participate in military research is not considered appropriate under the Nuremberg Code or the Declaration of Helsinki.

On June 18, 1991, the Federal Government announced that 16 U.S. governmental agencies would abide by a set of regulations, referred to as the "Common Rule," designed to protect human subjects who participate in federally funded research. (Note 10) The provisions of the "Common Rule," first promulgated for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in 1974, described how federally funded research involving human subjects shall be conducted. However, local Institutional Review Boards (IRB's) may revise or exclude some or all consent elements if the research exposes subjects to no more than "minimal risk," meaning "that the probability and magnitude of harm or discomfort anticipated in the research are not greater in and of themselves than those ordinarily encountered in daily life or during the performance of routine physical or psychological examinations or tests." (Note 11) IRB's vary greatly in their interpretation of the risks of daily life.

There are three provisions governing research funded by DHHS that are intended to protect vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and fetuses, prisoners, and children. (Note 12) There are no special Federal regulations to protect military personnel when they participate as human subjects in federally funded research, despite logical questions about whether military personnel can truly "volunteer" in response to a request from a superior officer.

Current law prevents the Department of Defense from using Federal funds for research involving the use of human experimental subjects, unless the subject gives informed consent in advance. This law applies regardless of whether the research is intended to benefit the subject. (Note 13)

D. DUGWAY PROVING GROUND

Dugway Proving Ground is a military testing facility located approximately 80 miles from Salt Lake City. For several decades, Dugway has been the site of testing for various chemical and biological agents. From 1951 through 1969, hundreds, perhaps thousands of open-air tests using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in human, animals, and plants were conducted at Dugway. (Note 22) For example, antigens produced by animals that had come in contact with Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis (VEE), a disease usually found in horses, were later found in animals around Dugway. Prior to the identification of these substances in the Dugway vicinity, VEE had only been identified in the rat population in Florida. Such a finding suggested that VEE had been used in the open-air tests at Dugway or within laboratories, and transferred to the nearby animal population. (Note 23)

In 1968, approximately 6,400 sheep died following the intentional release of a deadly nerve gas from a plane. According to a veterinarian who evaluated the sick and dying sheep, there was little doubt that the sheep had been poisoned with nerve gas. (Note 24) The sheep and other animals in the area had depressed cholinesterase levels, suggesting organophosphate nerve poisoning. Initially, the Department of Defense denied any responsibility for the accident, stating that the sheep died from organophosphate pesticides sprayed on a nearby alfalfa field. However, the nerve agent VX was identified when the poisoned sheep were autopsied, which made it clear that the deaths were not caused by pesticides. (Note 25) Eventually, the Department of Defense reimbursed the ranchers for their animals.

It is unknown how many people in the surrounding vicinity were also exposed to potentially harmful agents used in open-air tests at Dugway. In 1969, concerns were expressed at a congressional hearing about the possible public health implications of the VEE virus tested at Dugway. (Note 26)

Due to previous problems with dangerous organisms and chemicals, Dugway has developed an active program of "simulant" testing. According to the Department of Defense, simulants are harmless organisms or chemicals which do not cause disease. However, during 45 years of open-air testing, the Army has stopped using a variety simulants when they realized they were not as safe as previously believed. (Note 27)

E. RADIATION EXPOSURE

ATOMIC VETERANS

From 1945 to 1962, the United States conducted numerous nuclear detonation tests: Crossroads (Bikini); Sandstone, Greenhouse, and Ivy (Eniwetok Atoll); Castle (Bikini Atoll); Pacific Ocean 400 miles southwest of San Diego; Redwing and Hardtack I (Eniwetok and Bikini Atolls); Argus (South Atlantic); and Dominic (Christmas Island, Johnston Island, 400 miles west of San Diego). (Note 28) The main goal was to determine damage caused by the bombs; however, as a result, thousands of military personnel and civilians were exposed to radioactive fallout. Similar tests were conducted within the continental United States, including sites in New Mexico and Nevada. (Note 29) Veterans who participated in activities that directly exposed them to radioactive fallout are referred to as "atomic veterans."

Data obtained on some military personnel who were exposed to radioactive fallout were collected after these men were unintentionally exposed. However, some atomic veterans believe they were used as guinea pigs to determine the effects of radiation from various distances, including those at ground zero, on human subjects. Their suspicions are supported by a 1951 document from the Joint Panel on the Medical Aspects of Atomic Warfare, Research and Development Board, Department of Defense, which identified general criteria for bomb test-related "experiments" and identified 29 "specific problems" as "legitimate basis for biomedical participation."
(Note 30)

The National Research Council's Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) have prepared a series of reports to advise the U.S. Government on the health consequences of radiation exposure. (Note 31) The first of these reports was not published until the late 1980's, decades after military personnel were first exposed to ionizing radiation. For the last 13 years, the VA has provided free medical care to atomic veterans who have disorders they believe to be caused by ionizing radiation, even if there is no conclusive evidence of the cause. (Note 32) In addition, the VA provides monthly compensation to veterans who were exposed to ionizing radiation during military service, who have illnesses that are believed to be associated with their exposure. The lists of compensable diseases have been revised as more research information has become available. For example, on October 11, 1994, the VA announced that tumors of the brain and central nervous system would be considered for disability compensation for veterans exposed to ionizing radiation. (Note 33)

F. HALLUCINOGENS

Working with the CIA, the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs to thousands of "volunteer" soldiers in the 1950's and 1960's. In addition to LSD, the Army also tested quinuclidinyl benzilate, a hallucinogen code-named BZ. (Note 37) Many of these tests were conducted under the so-called MKULTRA program, established to counter perceived Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing techniques. Between 1953 and 1964, the program consisted of 149 projects involving drug testing and other studies on unwitting human subjects. (Note 38)

One test subject was Lloyd B. Gamble, who enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1950. In 1957, he volunteered for a special program to test new military protective clothing. He was offered various incentives to participate in the program, including a liberal leave policy, family visitations, and superior living and recreational facilities. However, the greatest incentive to Mr. Gamble was the official recognition he would receive as a career-oriented noncommissioned officer, through letters of commendation and certification of participation in the program. During the 3 weeks of testing new clothing, he was given two or three water-size glasses of a liquid containing LSD to drink. Thereafter, Mr. Gamble developed erratic behavior and even attempted suicide. He did not learn that he had received LSD as a human subject until 18 years later, as a result of congressional hearings in 1975. (Note 39) Even then, the Department of the Army initially denied that he had participated in the experiments, although an official DOD publicity photograph showed him as one of the valiant servicemen volunteering for "a program that was in the highest national security interest." (Note 40)

According to Sidney Gottlieb, a medical doctor and former CIA agent, MKULTRA was established to investigate whether and how an individual's behavior could be modified by covert means. (Note 41) According to Dr. Gottlieb, the CIA believed that both the Soviet Union and Communist China might be using techniques of altering human behavior which were not understood by the United States. Dr. Gottlieb testified that "it was felt to be mandatory and of the utmost urgency for our intelligence organization to establish what was possible in this field on a high priority basis." Although many human subjects were not informed or protected, Dr. Gottlieb defended those actions by stating, "...harsh as it may seem in retrospect, it was felt that in an issue where national survival might be concerned, such a procedure and such a risk was a reasonable one to take." (Note 42)

G. INVESTIGATIONAL DRUGS USED IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR

Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, all vaccines and medical products must be proven safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to be sold and distributed in the United States. This law also applies to medical products used by the Department of Defense, even if given to U.S. troops who are stationed in other countries.

FDA also regulates medical products that are proven safe and effective for some uses or with specific doses, but not for other uses or other doses. If the product is only sold at certain doses and not others, its use at the non-approved dose would be considered investigational. If the product is legally available for sale at the same dosage, physicians can legally prescribe it; however, manufacturers can not advertise it for that purpose. Such "off label" use is also considered investigational. So, for example, a drug may be proven safe and effective to treat one kind of cancer, but be considered investigational to treat a different disease.

Under current law, an unapproved vaccine or investigational use of a drug could only be administered by the DOD under an Investigational New Drug (IND) procedure. (Note 43) Under an IND, any individual who is given the investigational product must give informed consent, i.e., must be told of the potential risks and benefits of the product, orally and in writing, and choose freely whether or not to participate. In addition, the IND requires that the medical product be distributed under carefully controlled conditions where safety and effectiveness can be evaluated.

When the Department of Defense began preparations for Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990, officials were extremely concerned that Iraq would use chemical and biological weapons against the United States. Despite years of study and billions of dollars, the DOD lacked drugs and vaccines that were proven safe and effective to safeguard against anticipated chemical nerve agents and biological toxins. Therefore, DOD officials wanted to use a medication (pyridostigmine bromide) and vaccine (botulinum toxoid) that they believed might protect against chemical nerve agents and botulism. Because the safety and effectiveness of pyridostigmine bromide and botulinum toxoid had not been proven for their intended use, these products were considered investigational drugs.

Pyridostigmine bromide is a chemical which enhances the effectiveness of two drugs, atropine and 2-PAM, which are proven effective for the treatment of nerve agent poisoning. (Note 44) Pyridostigmine is also a nerve agent itself. Nerve agents exert their biological effects by binding to, and inhibiting, the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE) which normally shuts off the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine (ACh). When levels of ACh increase, nerve impulses and organ activity increase. When nerve and organ stimulation are excessive, death can result.

There are two major categories of nerve agents, carbamates and organophosphate (OP) compounds. (Note 45) German scientists developed many of the OP compounds for warfare agents and pesticides in the 1930's and 1940's. Examples of warfare agents include tabun, sarin, soman, and VX. Many organophosphates permanently inhibit AChE. This permanent effect, which can only be reversed when new enzymes are synthesized, makes OP warfare agents extremely lethal.

Pyridostigmine bromide is a carbamate, rather than an OP compound. (Note 46) Although it is a nerve agent, pyridostigmine has a reversible effect which can protect the AChE from permanently binding to OP compounds. When appropriate doses are selected, pyridostigmine theoretically should not cause nerve agent poisoning and should help protect against some lethal chemical warfare.

Efficacy. Pyridostigmine only works when taken in combination with other drugs and only if taken before exposure to nerve gas. (Note 47) Two antidotes to nerve agents, atropine and pyridine-2-aldoxime methochloride (2-PAM), are reportedly enhanced if pyridostigmine has already been given. Atropine and 2-PAM were included in the nerve agent antidote kits (Mark I) which were issued to U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf.

In research studies, animals given pyridostigmine, atropine, and 2-PAM were more likely to survive exposure to one chemical nerve agent, soman, than those given only atropine and 2-PAM. However, pyridostigmine is unable to enter and protect the brain, so that animals exposed to soman can still suffer from convulsions despite the pyridostigmine pretreatment. (Note 48) To protect against brain damage from ongoing seizure activity, valium may also be required following exposure to a warfare nerve agent. Similarly, pyridostigmine may offer little protection against the damage caused by nerve agents in the spinal cord. (Note 49)

Safety. Pyridostigmine bromide is approved by the FDA for treating myasthenia gravis, a neurological disease characterized by extreme weakness. This disease occurs when individuals develop antibodies that prevent ACh from causing muscle impulses at the neuromuscular junction. Therefore, treatment with relative high doses of pyridostigmine increases ACh to levels that are able to overcome the "block" created by the antibodies. An analogy might be that of a fishing pond. The two ways to increase the number of fish caught are to increase the number of fishing poles or to increase the number of fish in the pond.

FDA and DOD officials claimed they were confident of the safety of pyridostigmine as an antidote enhancer for chemical warfare protection because it would be used at a much lower dose (Note 50) in combat than normally used for treating patients with myasthenia gravis. However, normal patients and those with myasthenia gravis may not respond similarly to the same dose of pyridostigmine bromide. Whereas the dosage of pyridostigmine bromide for patients with myasthenia gravis may reach 120 mg every three hours, (Note 51) the dose for U.S. troops was only 30 mg every 8 hours. A good analogy is the use of insulin for diabetes mellitus; very high doses of insulin are sometimes necessary to treat diabetics, but similar doses could be fatal for non-diabetic individuals.

Some scientists also question whether pyridostigmine is completely safe even for treating patients with myasthenia gravis. The proportion of patients with myasthenia gravis that recover after surgical treatment (thymectomy) has decreased since pyridostigmine therapy was introduced several decades ago. (Note 52) Experts speculate that whereas the problems caused by myasthenia gravis can be corrected by surgery, pyridostigmine may cause immune damage to the neuromuscular junction that cannot be corrected by surgery. Since the symptoms of pyridostigmine damage would be similar to the symptoms of myasthenia gravis, any damage from the pyridostigmine would be extremely difficult if not impossible to diagnose.

In addition to its use for myasthenia gravis, pyridostigmine bromide has been approved by FDA for use with surgical patients; it is administered after surgery to reverse the effect of anesthesia, which are neuromuscular blocking agents. The dose is relatively small (15 mg) and not repeated. This treatment does not provide relevant information about the safety of repeated use of pyridostigmine by healthy individuals, since the dosage is small and the patients have received neuromuscular blocking agents.

The bromide that is included in pyridostigmine bromide pills is known to sometimes cause problems referred to as "bromide intoxication" when used for the treatment of myasthenia gravis. (Note 53) Bromide intoxication may cause confusion, irritability, tremor, memory loss, psychotic behavior, ataxia, stupor, and coma. Some patients with bromide intoxication have a skin disorder of the face and hands resembling acne. A 60 mg tablet of the commercially available pyridostigmine bromide contains 18.4 mg bromide (30.6 percent). (Note 54), (Note 55)

FDA has not approved pyridostigmine bromide for repeated use in healthy individuals as an antidote enhancer or for any other reason. Since it would be unethical to expose individuals to potentially lethal chemical weapons in order to evaluate the efficacy of pyridostigmine, this use has only been studied on animals. The product is therefore an investigational drug when used as an antidote enhancer for treating nerve gas poisoning.

Botulinum toxoid is an unapproved vaccine that is used to protect laboratory workers and others who are likely to be exposed to botulism. Botulism is caused by at least one of seven neurotoxins produced by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. When home-canning of food was common, food poisoning was the most common cause of botulism in the United States; the bacteria in the food produces a toxin which is eaten. Today, the most common form of botulism occurs in infants, since the bacteria that produces the toxin can thrive in a baby's intestinal tract.

A botulism vaccine that is intended to protect against five of seven neurotoxins (called A,B,C,D,E) is produced by the Michigan Department of Health. This is called pentavalent toxoid. This vaccine is not a licensed product and must be distributed as an Investigational New Drug (IND).

Efficacy. Desert Shield began on August 8, 1990. Since the air war did not begin until January 16, 1991, and the ground war took place from February 24-27, 1991, the Pentagon had several months to review the possible use of investigational drugs and vaccines. In December 1990, the FDA advised the Department of Defense that it would be unable to test the botulism vaccine for efficacy, presumably because of limited time before the onset of the war. The FDA agreed to test the vaccine for safety, but these tests were not completed until late January 1991. At a meeting of the Informed Consent Waiver Review Group (ICWRG) on December 31, 1990, a representative of FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research discussed the vaccine, explaining that the existing supply was nearly 20 years old and consisted of three lots, stored under continuous refrigeration. (Note 56) Given the age of these vaccines, there were concerns about their safety.

The recommended schedule for immunization with the pentavalent vaccine includes a series of three initial injections at 0, 2, and 12 weeks, followed by a booster 12 months after the first injection. According to the Centers for Disease Control's Center for Infectious Diseases, subjects given the vaccine did not have detectable antitoxin titers after the first two shots in the initial series, which means that they were unlikely to be protected at week 2. (Note 57) If for any reason only two immunizations can be given, at least 4 to 8 weeks should elapse between injections if most individuals are to be protected against the disease. (Note 58)

Safety. The Michigan Department of Health reported that 4.2 percent of patients reported a sore arm or other local reactions to the initial series of three shots, and 12.1 percent had local reactions to the booster shots. (Note 59) Almost 3 percent had systemic reactions, such as general malaise, after either the initial three shots or the booster shots. Because of the relatively large percentage of adverse reactions, new lots of the vaccine were manufactured in 1971. However, there is no evidence that the newer lots produced fewer adverse reactions than the older lots.

In her review of the DOD's application for use of botulinum toxoid in the Persian Gulf, an FDA reviewer pointed out that in 1973, the Centers for Disease Control had considered terminating the distribution of the vaccine because of the relatively large number of individuals who had negative reactions to it. (Note 60) The FDA reviewer also pointed out that "there are no efficacy data in humans" and that the dose for humans was an estimate based on results from guinea pigs. In addition, potency testing had suggested that the vaccine would not be effective against two of the five botulism toxins.

According to the Michigan Department of Health, the effects of the botulism vaccine on pregnant women had not been studied prior to its use in the Persian Gulf War.

Anthrax vaccine is an FDA-approved vaccine that is considered safe and effective for individuals whose skin may come in contact with animal products such as hides, hair, or bones likely to contain the anthrax infection. It is also recommended for veterinarians and others who are likely to touch infected animals. (Note 61) However, the vaccine's effectiveness against inhaled anthrax is unknown. Unfortunately, when anthrax is used as a biological weapon, it is likely to be aerosolized and thus inhaled. Therefore, the efficacy of the vaccine against biological warfare is unknown.

It appears that there is only one relevant animal study which showed that anthrax vaccine apparently provided additional protection against relapse in monkeys exposed to inhalation anthrax and treated with antibiotics. (Note 62) Although the results of this study suggest the vaccine might protect against anthrax that has been sprayed, it is not sufficient to prove that anthrax vaccine is safe and effective as used in the Persian Gulf. The vaccine should therefore be considered investigational when used as a protection against biological warfare.

The anthrax vaccine is given as three injections 2 weeks apart, followed by three additional injections given 6, 12, and 18 months after the initial injection. If immunity is to be maintained, subsequent booster injections of anthrax vaccine are recommended at 1-year intervals. (Note 63) According to the Interagency Task Force on Persian Gulf War Illnesses, one dose provides some immunity in 85 percent of those individuals vaccinated. (Note 64)

According to the Michigan Department of Public Health which manufactures anthrax vaccine, it is not known whether anthrax vaccine is safe for pregnant women or their offspring.

III. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

A. FOR AT LEAST 50 YEARS, DOD HAS KNOWINGLY EXPOSED MILITARY PERSONNEL TO POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES, OFTEN IN SECRET.
The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances. (Note 65) GAO stated that some tests and experiments were conducted in secret. Medical research involving the testing of nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psychochemicals, and irritants was often classified. Additionally, some work conducted for DOD by contractors still remains classified today. For example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not released the names of 15 of the approximately 80 organizations that conducted experiments under the MKULTRA program, which gave psychochemical drugs to an undetermined number of people without their knowledge or consent. According to the GAO report, the CIA has not released this information because the organizations do not want to be identified. (Note 66)

COLD WAR VETERANS

During the years immediately following World War II, military personnel were intentionally exposed to radiation during the testing of atomic bombs and during radioactive releases. While it is unclear how many of these servicemembers were intentionally exposed to what were known to be harmful levels of radiation, there is clear evidence that in some cases military personnel were ordered to locate themselves in areas of high radioactive fallout. They were given no choice in the matter, and they were not told of the potential risks of those exposures.

Similarly, military personnel were intentionally given hallucinogenic drugs to determine the effects of those drugs on humans. The servicemembers were not told that they would be given experimental drugs, they had no choice of whether or not to take them, and even after the unusual effects of the drugs were obvious to researchers, the unwitting human subjects were given no information about the known effects of the drugs. Even if the DOD did not know about the potential long-term effects of the drugs, that would not justify their failure to provide information to thousands of servicemembers about the known short-term effects of the drugs.

PERSIAN GULF WAR VETERANS

Persian Gulf veterans were also given investigational vaccines and ordered not to tell anyone. In a Committee survey of 150 individuals who served in the military during the Persian Gulf War (see Appendix), many of those surveyed indicated they were ordered, under threat of Article 15 or court martial, to discuss their vaccinations with no one, not even with medical professionals needing the information to treat adverse reactions from the vaccine. Similarly, 86 percent of the military personnel who told the Committee that they were ordered to take pyridostigmine bromide reported that they received no information on what they were taking or the drug's potential risks. According to a DOD study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, commanding officers and medical personnel were also inadequately informed about the investigational drugs; as a result, they were ill-prepared to recognize or treat military personnel who experienced side effects. (Note 71)

B. DOD HAS REPEATEDLY FAILED TO COMPLY WITH REQUIRED ETHICAL STANDARDS WHEN USING HUMAN SUBJECTS IN MILITARY RESEARCH DURING WAR OR THREAT OF WAR.
The major principle of all research ethics involving human subjects, as described by the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the "Common Rule" of the U.S. Government, states that the voluntary, competent, informed, and understanding consent of the subject is absolutely essential, whether during war or peace. (Note 72)

These standards are more than 50 years old. For example, the Nuremberg Code was based on testimony of two U.S. physicians, Drs. Leo Alexander and Andrew Ivy, who served as expert medical witnesses for the Nazi crime prosecutors. The code was not the outcome of an attempt to frame a new code of ethics, but rather a description of criteria said to be widely accepted by the medical profession at the time. (Note 73) Therefore, DOD research during the 1940's was clearly conducted in an era when researchers were well aware of ethical codes regarding the use of human subjects.

The Department of Defense has violated these well-established ethical principles each time soldiers are required to participate in military research or take investigational drugs or vaccines or are not adequately informed about the risks of the experiments.

C. DOD INCORRECTLY CLAIMS THAT SINCE THEIR GOAL WAS TREATMENT, THE USE OF INVESTIGATIONAL DRUGS IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR WAS NOT RESEARCH.

Despite the fact that pyridostigmine was an investigational drug whose safety and effectiveness had not been proven to FDA, the DOD claims that its use in the Persian Gulf War was prevention and treatment, not research. For example, Dr. Edward Martin, Acting Principal Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, stated at the Committee's hearing on May 6, 1994, that "..investigational products were employed during the Persian Gulf War as prophylactic treatments against biological and chemical warfare agents. This was not research but direct prevention and treatment." (Note 93) Additionally, John M. Bachkosky, Deputy Director, Office of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, wrote to Sen. Rockefeller on May 19, 1994, that "[botulinum toxoid and pyridostigmine bromide] were used for direct prevention and treatment and were not employed as part of any research effort." (Note 94)

In a letter to Sen. Rockefeller dated November 17, 1994, DOD continues to claim that its use of pyridostigmine was not research. John Deutch, Deputy Secretary of Defense, wrote that, "Although pyridostigmine and botulinum toxoid were classified as investigational drugs as required by FDA regulations, they were not used for experimental purposes in [Operation Desert Storm] and the military personnel who received these products were not experimental subjects." (Note 95) Mr. Deutch added that, "The fact that these drugs were used for treatment purposes, not research purposes, was clearly understood by all parties involved and specifically approved by the courts in litigation challenging the governments [sic] actions." Once again, it appears that the DOD confuses the goals of using these medical products with the process, which was clearly considered investigational by FDA.

Dr. Arthur Caplan, who at the time he testified was Director of the Center of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota, addressed that issue at the May 6 hearing. He explained that the fact that the goal is treatment and that DOD believed the benefits of the pills and vaccines would outweigh the risks "doesn't transform the use of experimental, innovative, investigational agents into therapies. These agents were used, as we have heard, in large populations for purposes other than those for which they were originally designed in some cases, and circumstances under which they had never before been tried out in the desert. This seems to me to cinch the case that what took place fell into the category of experimental, innovative and investigational, and that makes them research." (Note 96)

Since the end of the Persian Gulf War, DOD has repeatedly requested that the waiver of informed consent be made permanent, arguing that "to not finalize it provides an arguable defect under the Administrative Procedures Act and leaves both DOD and FDA open to greater liability." (Note 97) To finalize the interim rule would grant unrestricted use of investigational drugs by military personnel, even though investigational status means that efficacy and safety have not been proven. FDA has not yet decided whether to concur with DOD's request.

D. DOD USED INVESTIGATIONAL DRUGS IN THE PERSIAN GULF WAR IN WAYS THAT WERE NOT EFFECTIVE.

The DOD persuaded FDA that informed consent should be waived for pyridostigmine bromide and botulism vaccine because these investigational products had been used safely in the past. However, based on documents provided to the Committee staff, it is doubtful that either of these products would have been effective as used in the Persian Gulf War.

Pyridostigmine bromide, according to DOD, improves the survival of animals exposed to soman and treated with atropine and 2-PAM. However, pyridostigmine pretreatment makes individuals more vulnerable to other nerve agents, such as VX and sarin. (Note 98) The DOD scientists who studied pyridostigmine and sarin therefore concluded that pyridostigmine should only be used when the chemical warfare threat is soman. (Note 99)

The Pentagon, however, had no reason to believe that the Iraqis were more likely to use soman rather than sarin. According to a report by the Persian Gulf Veterans Coordinating Board, Iraq had several chemical weapons, including sarin. (Note 100) Moreover, at a briefing for Senators and staff on November 10, 1993, Under Secretary of Defense John Deutch stated that the Czechoslovakian military detected low levels of sarin in the Saudi theater during the opening days of the air war against Iraq. This statement was also made by Joseph Corrivean, U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center, on April 27, 1994, at a National Institutes of Health workshop on "The Persian Gulf Experience and Health."

Even if U.S. troops had been exposed to soman, it is unclear that the pyridostigmine would have provided adequate protection against nerve damage. When DOD began the second phase of research on pyridostigmine, it was noted that the atropine and 2-PAM did not seem to save the lives of animals that were exposed to soman. As a result, the dose of atropine was increased to 0.40 mg/kg, which according to FDA, increased the survival of Rhesus monkeys exposed to soman. (Note 101) However, when the Department of Defense developed a treatment regimen for U.S. troops during the Persian Gulf War, it was based on the inadequate dose of atropine in the animal studies (0.096 mg/kg) rather than the higher, effective dose. (Note 102) Therefore, even if Persian Gulf soldiers had been exposed to soman, it is questionable if the pyridostigmine pretreatment would have provided any protection, since the dose of atropine was apparently inadequate.

In response to posthearing questions about this dosage discrepancy from Sen. Rockefeller, the DOD stated "the dose of atropine in the Mark I kit was established based exclusively on safety, rather than on efficacy, considerations." (Note 103) This statement suggests that hundreds of thousands of servicemembers were put at risk by requiring them to take a drug with known risks (pyridostigmine bromide) in a situation where it might have done little good since the atropine dose in the Mark I kits, 6 mg, was inadequate. Based on the monkey data, a dose of 27 mg would have been required for a 150-pound man. (Note 104) However, the side effects of only 2 mg of atropine in a normal young person (without nerve-agent exposure) include increased heart rate, decreased sweating, visual blurring, and others. (Note 105) Apparently, DOD officials decided that the high dosage required for protection would impair performance, so they selected the much lower dosage, even though its effectiveness was questionable. Although results for monkeys may not be exactly comparable to those for humans, it seems unlikely that humans would respond dramatically differently. It is therefore likely that the dose of atropine in the Mark I kits was inadequate for efficacy, and even with this very low dose could have compromised the ability of servicemembers during war. (Note 106)

Botulism vaccine was given too late to U.S. troops to be of any use had the Iraqis actually used biological warfare during Desert Storm. At a briefing on April 20, 1994, DOD officials informed Committee staff that botulism vaccine was not administered to most military personnel in the Persian Gulf until January 23, 1991, which was 7 days after the onset of the air war. Approximately 8,000 individuals received the vaccine, but most received only one or two inoculations. Because the war ended on February 27, 1991, before the third injection was scheduled to be given, it is unlikely that these soldiers were adequately immunized. Moreover, because of the severe shortage of the product, the remainder of those deployed received no inoculations, and hence no protection against botulism.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, 696,562 individuals participated in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Therefore, 99 percent of the military personnel deployed would have received no protection due to the shortage of botulinum toxoid, and the remaining 1 percent were probably not protected because the vaccine distribution started too late.

Additionally, in December 1990, the FDA advised the Department of Defense that it would be unable to test the botulism vaccine for efficacy, presumably because of limited time before the onset of the war. (Note 107) Therefore, in addition to the limited supply of vaccine and late onset of inoculations, efficacy of the existing supply was not determined prior to the onset of the war.

Anthrax vaccine was given to approximately 150,000 military personnel in the Persian Gulf.

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST...

[J.B. Stone]

Anthrax vaccine was given to approximately 150,000 military personnel in the Persian Gulf. Anthrax vaccine is considered effective for protecting against anthrax exposure of the skin; however it is unclear whether it provides protection against inhaling aerosolized anthrax. (Note 108) According to the Department of Defense, in biological warfare the anthrax would be sprayed, so the efficacy of the vaccine against aerosolized anthrax would have been the relevant test. (Note 109) As stated earlier in this report, the DOD has only one study indicating that the vaccine might be useful against aerosolized anthrax, but there are no data on humans.

J. ARMY REGULATIONS EXEMPT INFORMED CONSENT FOR VOLUNTEERS IN SOME TYPES OF MILITARY STUDIES.

Army regulation (AR) 70-25 provides guidelines for the use of volunteers as subjects in military research. Section 3 describes three exemptions whereby military researchers are exempt from the provisions of these protective regulations (the following is a direct quote from the regulation):

* a. Research and nonresearch programs, tasks, and tests which may involve inherent occupational hazards to health or exposure of personnel to potentially hazardous situations encountered as part of training or other normal duties, e.g., flight training, jump training, marksmanship training, ranger training, fire drills, gas drills, and handling of explosives.

* b. That portion of human factors research which involves normal training or other military duties as part of an experiment, wherein disclosure of experimental conditions to participating personnel would reveal the artificial nature of such conditions and defeat the purpose of the investigation.

* c. Ethical medical and clinical investigations involving the basic disease process or new treatment procedures conducted by the Army Medical Service for the benefit of patients. (Note 145)

It is sometimes difficult to differentiate training from research. For example, military personnel at the U.S. Chemical School, Fort McClellan, AL, are currently exposed to nerve agent poisons as part of their training, so that they will learn how to cope with similar situations in combat. Soldiers who refuse to participate or do not complete live agent training are subject to reclassification in another military occupational specialty and cannot graduate. (Note 146) To determine if the students used correct procedures during the training exercise, blood samples are obtained from some students before and after the procedure, and are analyzed for red blood cell cholinesterase to determine if the soldier was exposed to the nerve agents.

If the military collects data to determine how to better train individuals, the "training" is then defined as contributing information to generalizable knowledge, and is hence "research." For the optimal protection of U.S. troops, one would hope that training exercises are improved based on reliable information. However, during the testing of new training methods or equipment, exercises utilizing potentially dangerous substances, such as chemical weapons, should be considered research rather than training. Participants must be fully apprised of the nature of the experiments and have the opportunity to refuse without reprisal, in order to conform with the Nuremberg Code and other ethical standards.

K. DOD AND DVA HAVE REPEATEDLY FAILED TO PROVIDE INFORMATION AND MEDICAL FOLLOWUP TO THOSE WHO PARTICIPATE IN MILITARY RESEARCH OR ARE ORDERED TO TAKE INVESTIGATIONAL DRUGS.

A common theme voiced by military personnel who have participated in military research or training exercises over the last 50 years is the lack of information about the risks they faced and the lack of medical followup. World War II veterans frequently reported that they heard about the adverse health effects of mustard gas and lewisite from newspapers and television decades after they were exposed, not from the Department of Defense or Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans and civilians who worked at the Dugway Proving Ground and were exposed to a variety of biological and chemical simulants began to question the association of poor health with work as they compared information among themselves, not because of information provided by military officials. Veterans who were inside atomic clouds from atomic testing heard nothing at all from their government after they returned home from duty. Similarly, soldiers who unknowingly participated in military research designed to test the effects of hallucinogens on human behavior were never given information to explain their hallucinations and suffered from severe psychological disorders as a result. Even today, most of those who served in the Persian Gulf indicate they have received no followup information about the investigational drugs they received.

It is the responsibility of DOD and VA to identify and keep track of veterans exposed to potentially dangerous substances so that they can receive medical care if needed. Even in situations where DOD believes an investigational drug is safe, such followup is necessary to establish with certainty whether exposures were safe, or whether they resulted in long- term side effects.

L. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED TO SUPPORT SCIENTIFIC STUDIES THAT PROVIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE REPRODUCTIVE PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED BY VETERANS WHO WERE INTENTIONALLY EXPOSED TO POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES.

In the last year, Gulf War veterans have reported that exposures during military service have resulted in miscarriages and birth defects, as well as excruciating pain during sexual intercourse. For example, at a Committee hearing on August 5, 1994, Kelli Albuck, the wife of a Gulf War veteran, described the miscarriage and pregnancy problems she had experienced since her husband returned from the Gulf War. She also described what she called "burning semen" or "shooting fire." Mrs. Albuck stated that many wives of Gulf War veterans complained that their husbands' semen caused a burning sensation, and in her case that the semen itself could cause a rash or blood blister on her husband's leg or her skin. Steve Miller, an Army nurse who also testified at that hearing, had no problems with burning semen, but his son was born with extensive birth defects, including having only one eye and one ear. The doctors told him that the combination of severe birth defects was very unusual and suggestive of a toxic exposure. Mr. Miller believes that his son's birth defects could be related to his use of investigational drugs or vaccines, perhaps in combination with pesticide exposures.

Similarly, many atomic veterans believe that infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects resulted from exposure to ionizing radiation.

Although these reports have received media attention for years, the VA and DOD have not conducted research on these questions, nor have they supported independent research. Finally, 50 years after veterans were intentionally exposed to ionizing radiation, the VA will be required by law to enter into a contract with the Institute of Medicine (IOM), or a similar independent agency, to evaluate whether it is feasible to support research on the reproductive problems associated with exposure to ionizing radiation. If the IOM determines that such research is feasible, the VA and the Congress will then determine whether such research should be funded. (Note 147)

In November 1994, President Clinton signed a law that would require VA to conduct research on birth defects and miscarriages among Gulf War families. A preliminary study will be required, in which information about these reproductive outcomes will be included in the Persian Gulf War Veterans' Health Registry. In addition, VA will be required to include semen analysis and other reproductive evaluations in a standard protocol used to evaluate Gulf War veterans with mysterious illnesses.

M. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS ALSO FAILED TO SUPPORT SCIENTIFIC STUDIES THAT PROVIDE TIMELY INFORMATION FOR COMPENSATION DECISIONS REGARDING MILITARY PERSONNEL WHO WERE HARMED BY VARIOUS EXPOSURES.

For decades, military personnel who were injured from various exposures have been denied compensation until scientific evidence could support their claims for service-connected disabilities. Although 60,000 military subjects were involved as human subjects in testing programs involving mustard gas and lewisite over 50 years ago, the initiation of a study to review research regarding the long-term health consequences from these military experiments did not occur until 1991, and the results of the study were not published until 1993. (Note 148)

Similarly, the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam has stimulated concern and controversy ever since the United States began the military herbicide program in 1961, but a comprehensive review and evaluation of available scientific and medical information regarding the health effects of herbicides and the contaminant dioxin was not conducted until it was authorized by Congress in 1991. (Note 149) The Department of Veterans Affairs has recently announced new rules for awarding compensation for more Agent Orange-related diseases, three decades after military personnel were exposed to the defoliant in Vietnam. (Note 150)
Reports of the National Research Council's Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR), written to advise the U.S. Government on the health consequences of radiation exposure, frequently relied on mortality and morbidity experiences of exposed individuals, some of which took decades to accumulate. (Note 151) Information is continuing to be gathered, which will be incorporated into future BEIR reports.

When investigational drugs and vaccines were given to thousands of military personnel during the Persian Gulf War, this provided an unprecedented opportunity to learn more about the safety of those products. Unfortunately, no effort was made to gather objective information, despite the fact that data gathering is required as part of the IND process for investigational drugs and vaccines. (Note 152) Any research that is conducted years after the war is over will be less scientifically valid and much more expensive as a result of the lack of objective information gathered during the war about which servicemembers took which drugs or vaccines, and the adverse reactions that they experienced.

The Medical Follow-up Agency (MFUA) of the Institute of Medicine will take 3 years to issue its final report on whether there is a scientific basis for an epidemiological study on the health consequences of service in the Persian Gulf. (Note 153) If the MFUA determines such a study or studies should be conducted, it will take several more years to gather the necessary data.

N. PARTICIPATION IN MILITARY RESEARCH IS RARELY INCLUDED IN MILITARY MEDICAL RECORDS, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO SUPPORT A VETERAN'S CLAIM FOR SERVICE-CONNECTED DISABILITIES FROM MILITARY RESEARCH.

Although hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel have been involved in military research, their medical records usually do not contain information about the studies they participated in, or the investigational drugs or vaccines they received. (Note 154) There are currently no standardized guidelines imposed by either the DOD or VA to include a copy of the informed consent form or research proposal in the medical records of exposed human subjects.

Even if medical records contain relevant information regarding health consequences from various investigations, these medical records may be difficult to obtain. Of the 150 individuals who were interviewed for the Committee's survey, not all respondents had tried to obtain their medical records, but 28 (19 percent) indicated that part or all of their medical record were lost and 48 (32 percent) respondents indicated that their medical records were incomplete or inaccurate (Appendix). Some of those surveyed believed their records had been deliberately altered or contained inaccurate information.

The VA Office of Inspector General recently investigated the possible illegal removal of official documents from certain veterans' appeals files assigned to two Board of Veterans' Appeals attorneys. (Note 155) It is unknown whether such intentional removal is a rare occurrence; clearly, any removal of medical information would make it difficult and perhaps impossible for a veteran to receive the medical care and compensation that he or she is entitled to.

In addition to any intentional removal of information, veterans' service medical records are difficult to find. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, veterans' service medical records can potentially be in thousands of locations. (Note 156) The DOD has attempted to simplify the retrieval of medical records by modifying the route for medical records of individuals who have left the military. The simplified route was initiated for the Army in October 1992, for the Navy in February 1994, and for the Air Force and Marines in late 1994. Although the new procedures should simplify the process, the GAO concluded that the possibility of misplaced medical records remains because there are still thousands of locations where records could be found within the new system.

O. DOD HAS DEMONSTRATED A PATTERN OF MISREPRESENTING THE DANGER OF VARIOUS MILITARY EXPOSURES THAT CONTINUES TODAY.

According to Dr. Leonard Cole, professor at Rutgers University, the DOD has denied the possibility of harm from various exposures. However, in many instances the military belatedly recognized that some exposures may be causing disease and death. (Note 157) Such denial, however, delays the availability of medical assistance to those harmed.

For example, the military has released chemicals and biological agents through outdoor "open air" tests for over four decades. Some of these supposedly safe chemicals and biological agents, referred to as simulants, were also released over populated areas and cities. (Note 158) Although scientific evidence suggested that the tests may have caused illnesses to exposed citizens, the Army repeatedly claimed that these bacteria and chemicals were harmless until adverse health effects convinced them to change the simulants used. The death of Edward J. Nevin was associated with the release of one simulant, Serratia marcescens, over San Francisco in 1950. (Note 159) A subsequent court trial revealed that on September 26 and 27, 1950, the Army sprayed Serratia marcescens from a boat off the coast of San Francisco. (Note 160) On September 29, patients at the Stanford University Hospital in San Francisco began appearing with Serratia marcescens infections. Although the judge denied the validity of the plaintiffs' claims that the exposures were related to the death of Mr. Nevin, the trial raised frightening questions about the selection of simulants. Serratia marcescens is no longer used by the military as a simulant.

Dugway Proving Ground has been a site for "open air" testing of chemical and biological agents for decades. The purpose of the tests is to determine how the agents spread and survive, and their effect on people and the environment. Earl Davenport is a veteran who participated in tests at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, first as a military employee and later as a civilian employee. He became ill in 1984 after being exposed to a chemical simulant called DMMP (dimethyl methylphosphate). He had been spraying the chemical into the path of a laser beam when a sudden change in wind blew the chemical all over his face and hair before he was able to put on a protective mask. Although he was "wheezing and coughing" the next day, and his symptoms lasted for weeks, the Dugway Army Hospital merely gave him cough medicine and antibiotics. The Dugway Safety Office assured him that the chemical was safe. However, by 1988, officials at Dugway had reevaluated the stimulant's danger, and were becoming concerned that DMMP could cause cancer and kidney damage. (Note 161) Mr. Davenport is currently attempting to obtain compensation for his illness from the Department of Labor, since his exposure occurred when he was employed at Dugway as a civilian.

In 1992, several military personnel from the Arizona National Guard experienced chemical burns during a summer training exercise at the Dugway Proving Grounds. According to two physicians, a daughter from one of the guardsmen also received chemical burns when she later handled her father's duffle bag. One of these doctors, Dr. Michael Vance, was contacted by military officials and encouraged to modify his written findings on the possible cause of the daughter's injury. (Note 162) He refused.

According to scientists and doctors from the University of Utah, there is great concern over the potential health consequences not only for military personnel who work and train at Dugway, but also for civilians who live in a small town and on an Indian reservation near the Proving Grounds. Moreover, physicians from the Utah Medical Society have complained about the lack of information provided to the medical community about the agents that are used in Dugway, despite repeated requests. (Note 163)

According to Dr. Cole, the use of potentially harmful chemical and biological agents continues at Dugway even today. For example, he testified that the Army uses a simulant called Bacillus subtilis, "which is fairly harmless in many natural conditions, [but] is recognized as a potential source of infection and can cause serious illness in some people when they are exposed to it in large numbers and they inhale large numbers of those microorganisms." (Note 164)

Dr. Cole also testified about the lack of informed consent at Dugway in recent months. For example, in November 1993, a test that was intended to evaluate whether chemical agents could penetrate protective clothing used informed consent forms that did not mention the chemicals. (Note 165)





THE COMPLETE REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE:

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/senate.htm

AND MUCH MORE DATA HERE:

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/nbc.htm

I have not read ALL the information to which I refer, but the sources on the website in question have proven to be reliable overall.

THE PROBLEM NOW is to get the U.S. Government and others to admit what they currently have underway and to get them to cease and decist before we have enabled our most dire enemies to eradicate us with our own devices...

"Government, in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without a government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." – Thomas Paine

"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction." – Aesop

[J.B. Stone]

Following the anthrax trail

The FBI investigation has led to connections between Battelle, the CIA, a former Soviet bio-warrior and an alleged bin Laden business associate

by Bob Fitrakis

While the national and international media has been busy exploring Battelle&#65533;s possible connection to the anthrax scare, the local media has been eerily quiet when it comes to Battelle&#65533;s ties to intelligence agencies and companies linked to an alleged bin Laden family business associate. Here&#65533;s what they&#65533;re not telling you:

The spooky Dr. Strangelove Institute headquartered in Columbus may be ground zero in the domestic military-industrial anthrax scare. With five people dead and 18 ill, Battelle&#65533;s role in directing the U.S. Defense Department&#65533;s &#65533;joint vaccine acquisition program&#65533; is now coming under heavy scrutiny&#65533;just not in Columbus.

Battelle, in partnership with BioPort of Lansing, Michigan, has a virtual monopoly on military anthrax vaccine production in the United States. BioPort is partly owned by a top-secret British bio-warfare consortium, Porton International. The New York Times reported in July 1998 that BioPort&#65533;s owners included Admiral William Crowe Jr., a former chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and ambassador to Britain during the Clinton years. One of Crowe&#65533;s partners is the mysterious Fuad El-Habri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent and a reported business associate of the bin Laden family.

Laura Rozen pointed out in an October 13, 2001, Salon.com article that El-Habri, BioPort&#65533;s CEO, &#65533;made a fortune&#65533; working for &#65533;Porton International&#65533; during the Gulf War a decade ago. Porton had a virtual monopoly on the anthrax vaccine in Britain in partnership with Battelle. Porton International&#65533;s for-profit arm, the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR), announced last March it was putting together a joint proposal with Battelle to supply the U.K. with an anthrax vaccine.

What&#65533;s Porton International, you might ask? Well, they&#65533;re the Battelle, so to speak, of the U.K. In the weeks immediately preceding the September 11 attacks, the consortium&#65533;s laboratories located at Porton Down made national news in Britain when the BBC reported that Porton Down scientists had conducted biological and chemical experiments on &#65533;about 20,000 so-called human guinea pigs&#65533; between 1939 and the 1960s.&#65533;

On August 27, Britain&#65533;s Independent newspaper reported that Porton&#65533;s chemical and biological defense branch &#65533;tested LSD on soldiers to investigate its &#65533;tactical battlefield usefulness&#65533;&#65533; in the &#65533;60s. Two days later, the Sunday Telegraph reported that the experiments included dripping liquid sarin, the deadly nerve gas, onto a patch taped to a soldier&#65533;s arm. The British police were investigating between 45 and 70 deaths linked to the experiments.

As I reported in Columbus Alive immediately after the anthrax scare began, Battelle is involved in developing a new and stronger strain of anthrax at its West Jefferson labs. Don&#65533;t be deceived by the fake farmland facades of the West Jefferson complex: It&#65533;s the center of an unclassified defense project going under the name &#65533;Project Jefferson,&#65533; according to the New York Times.

The Times also confirmed that the CIA is involved with its own top-secret anthrax project, code-named &#65533;Clear Vision.&#65533; The presence of the CIA and specter of &#65533;national security&#65533; is thwarting the current FBI investigation into the mailed anthrax, sources say.

More than any other organization, Battelle controlled access to the Ames strain of anthrax used in various secret projects&#65533;and the strain found in last fall&#65533;s deadly letters. The Baltimore Sun reported that the Ames strain was also being produced at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, but this is a red herring. Battelle&#65533;s involved in that program as well.

A Battelle press release dated December 18, 2001, reads: &#65533;Battelle is expanding&#65533; with the opening of a suite of offices in West Valley City, Utah. The office will house existing business operation from Battelle&#65533;s Dugway, Hill Air Force Base, and Toole, Utah, locations.&#65533; Battelle co-manages many labs and projects including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, well known for its role in the nuclear weapons industry.

As I previously noted in Alive, the number-two man in the former Soviet biochemical warfare operation, Kanatjan Alibekov, now going by the alias Ken Alibek, is a classified consultant with both the CIA and Battelle. A 1998 New Yorker article pointed to work on the anthrax project Alibek conducted with William C. Patrick III. Patrick, now president of Biothreat Assessments, has 48 years of biological warfare experience with the U.S. military, including a stint as the chief of the Army&#65533;s Product Development Division (which weaponizes biological agents).

The current FBI investigation has led toward the Patrick/Alibek/Battelle/CIA connection. But whether the feds have the will, or the authority, to investigate spook central in Columbus is another question. The New York Times, on November 9, reported that the FBI already made an error in the &#65533;anthrax probe&#65533; by allowing the &#65533;destruction of university&#65533; samples that &#65533;may have caused clues to be lost.&#65533;

On December 17, London&#65533;s Telegraph ran the headline: &#65533;CIA links Porton Down to anthrax attacks.&#65533; The newspaper reported, &#65533;Sources in the FBI said the CIA was under investigation because of the bureau&#65533;s &#65533;interest&#65533; in a contractor which used to work for the agency in its anthrax program.&#65533; Sources at Battelle and in law enforcement say the contractor in question was Alibek, not the unnamed former Battelle scientist in Milwaukee the Columbus Dispatch has referred to.

Alibek, who arrived in the U.S. in 1992, needs to be looked at very closely; news reports suggest he had possible financial stakes in a biochemical scare. On October 29, the Washington Post reported that Alibek &#65533;has hooked up with an Alexandria, Virginia, company, and, supported by federal grants, opened a laboratory of 35 people.&#65533; The article notes the former Soviet bio-warfare scientist is &#65533;learning to be a capitalist.&#65533;

&#65533;Hadron Advanced Biosystems Inc., Alibek&#65533;s company, sports an unusual provenance for a biotechnical venture. No other company, doing any kind of work, can claim to be headed by a former number-two man in a vast program aimed at turning anthrax, plague, smallpox, tularemia and many other germs into weapons of war,&#65533; noted the Post. &#65533;Alibek&#65533;s venture is a subsidiary of Hadron Inc&#65533;. a publicly traded 37-year-old government contractor specializing in defense and espionage work.&#65533;

The FBI&#65533;s investigation initially focused on who stood to gain financially from the deadly anthrax letters (as in, who has a stake in increased sales of the anthrax vaccine, for instance). Sources close to the investigation say that El-Habri&#65533;s possible ties to the bin Laden family also caused the FBI some concern&#65533;not to mention his role as CEO of the only laboratory in the U.S. licensed to sell the anthrax vaccine. But the convergence of the Strangelovian Battelle with BioPort, the British Porton Down consortium and the role of prominent individuals like Alibek, Crowe and El-Habri suggests that much of this is likely to be covered up.

Ironically, this summer, George W. Bush renounced long-standing calls by the Russians for mutual inspections of biochemical weapons sites like Battelle. Bush claimed that mutual inspection of U.S. biochemical technology sites by foreign scientists could risk revealing commercial trade secrets&#65533;secrets that would be worth a fortune if a few people controlled the commercial rights to them.

January 10, 2002

http://www.columbusalive.com/2002/20020 ... 00205.html

~~~~~~~~

This is an ASTONISHING article. Fits along with the current Evil threads...

They started their bioweapons program the year *after* signing the convention banning them. Ours was shut down three years before. Compare the description of smallpox attached below with the assertion the Soviets maintained no less than twenty TONS on strategic stockpile.

Rohit

------- Forwarded Message [Via IP] Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 22:34:45 -0500 From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>

The New Yorker magazine of March 9 has a long shattering essay on Ken Alibek, the former Soviet bioweapons expert, William Patrick, the US's counterpart, the state of Russian secret bioweapons development, and prospects for the spread and use of this WMD.

It's far more disturbingly detailed than the New York Times and ABC PrimeTime reports, and presents a horrific spectrum of gruesome details of nearly unimaginable catastrophe fermenting in secret laboratories and deepest black storage tanks.

If you thought nuclear weapons were terrifying, read this for a shocking introduction to evil which will give even thermonuclear warriors nightmares of helplessness.

Where Strangelovian physicists once ruled, now reign Mad microbiologists.

Richard Preston is the writer, featured on PrimeTime and author of The Hot Zone, on the Ebola virus.

For those without easy access to the magazine we offer a copy:

http://jya.com/bioweap.htm (62K)

------- End of Forwarded Message

The deadliest natural smallpox virus is known as Variola major. Natural smallpox was eradicated from the earth in 1977, when the last human case of it appeared, in Somalia. Since then, the virus has lived only in laboratories. Smallpox is an extremely lethal virus, and it is highly contagious in the air. When a child with chicken pox appears in a school classroom, many or most of the children in the class may go on to catch chicken pox. Smallpox is as contagious as chicken pox. One case of smallpox can give rise to twenty new cases. Each of those cases can start twenty more. In 1970, when a man infected with smallpox appeared in an emergency room in Germany, seventeen cases of smallpox appeared in the hospital on the floors above. Ultimately, the German government vaccinated a hundred thousand people to stop the outbreak. Two years later in Yugoslavia, a man with a severe case of smallpox visited several hospitals before dying in an intensive-care unit. To stop the resulting outbreak, which forced twenty thousand people into isolation, Yugoslav health authorities had to vaccinate virtually the entire population of the country within three weeks. Smallpox can start the biological equivalent of a runaway chain reaction. About a third of the people who get a hot strain of smallpox die of it. The skin puffs up with blisters the size of hazelnuts, especially over the face. A severe case of smallpox can essentially burn the skin off one's body.

The smallpox vaccine wears off after ten to twenty years. None of us are immune any longer, unless we've had a recent shot. There are currently seven million usable doses of smallpox vaccine stored in the United States, in one location in Pennsylvania. If an outbreak occurred here, it might be necessary to vaccinate all two hundred and seventy million people in the United States in a matter of weeks. There would be no way to meet such a demand.

http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/mar98/0361.html

[J.B. Stone]

CIVIL DEFENSE PERSPECTIVES

January 2002 (vol. 18, #2)
1601 N Tucson Blvd #9, Tucson AZ 85716
c 2001 Physicians for Civil Defense

SMALLPOX

Smallpox inoculation was introduced in Boston in the early 1700s. ``The idea had come from a slave belonging to Cotton Mather, an African named Onesimus, who had said the practice was long established in Africa, where those with the courage to use it were made immune, and he had his own scar on his arm to show. The technique ... was to make a small incision, then with a quill scoop the `pus from the ripe pustules' of a smallpox patient into the open cut. A generally mild case of smallpox would result, yet the risk of death was relatively slight. The ordeal of the patient ... could be considerable, ... largely because of various purges that were thought essential.''

Abigail Adams took her children to a relative's house in Boston for a two-month confinement to undergo the procedure. Poor Nabby got a bad case, being so covered with sores that she could neither walk, sit, stand, nor lie down in comfort, and her six-year-old brother had a raging fever and delirium that lasted 48 hours (McCullough, John Adams). Still, the risk of death in the recurrent epidemics that swept early America was such as to warrant the dangerous ordeal.

By 1966, 2 million people a year were still dying of smallpox, though no cases had been seen in the United States since 1949. Smallpox was officially declared to be eradicated worldwide in 1980, and routine vaccination stopped in 1972.

A hideous paradox was pointed out by Richard Preston: ``the eradication [with critical help from Russians] caused the human species to lose its immunity to smallpox, and that was what made it possible for the Soviets to turn smallpox into a weapon rivalling the hydrogen bomb'' (New Yorker 7/12/99, cryptome.org/bioweap.htm).

By 1998, the World Health Organization (WHO) had destroyed all but 500,000 doses of its smallpox vaccine for lack of $25,000 to pay for the electricity to store it properly, and manufacturing facilities had been converted to other use or destroyed. U.S. academics called for the destruction of the ``only two'' remaining virus stocks, to signal that any use of smallpox as a weapon would be the ``most reprehensible of crimes.'' (N Engl J Med 1998;339:556-559).

This was despite the fact that in 1991 U.S. and British inspectors got a whirlwind tour of some of the major bases of the clandestine Soviet biowarfare program Biopreparat. They were stunned when a technician at Vector, the virology center near Novosibirsk, spoke of work with variola major (smallpox). Since all the Soviet stocks were supposed to be in one freezer in Mos-cow, this was a major violation of WHO Rules. Building 6 housed a Model UKZD-25, a bioweapons explosion-test chamber, the most sophisticated ever found by inspectors in any country. Inspectors were not permitted to don space suits and go inside; they were told their vaccines might not protect them. The smallpox bioreactors had a capacity of 630 liters-big enough for a microbrewery. According to Dr. Donald Ainslie Henderson of Johns Hopkins, who led the effort to eradicate smallpox, the Soviets weaponized the virus and manufactured up to 100 tons annually, possibly supplying Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea (Wash Post 11/7/01).

The U.S. stockpile of possibly 7 million usable doses of smallpox vac-cine (6.3 million doses were used in New York City in 1947 to contain an outbreak) was kept in four card-board boxes in a walk-in freezer at a warehouse in Lancaster County, PA, as of 1999. Contracts have now been let to boost the stockpile to 280 million doses (Wall St J 11/30/01). Mean-while, studies are underway to test the efficacy of diluted doses of the old vaccine. Vaccine-resistant strains could make all this irrelevant: According to the Global Public Health Intel-ligence Net-work, Health Canada, Russians have weaponized and tested vaccine-resistant strains on prisoners (ProMED post 8/6/98).

In contrast to anthrax, smallpox gets around the most difficult technical problem of bioweapons: dissemination. After the initial attack, people become the disseminators. By the time the initial diagnosis was made, in about two weeks, the initial victims could be widely dispersed. A mathematical model predicts that each case could lead to an average of 3.5 to 6 secon-dary cases, assuming quarantine and vaccina-tion of traced contacts (Nature 2001;414:748-751). However, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm points out that in previous epidemics there was considerable immunity in the population. Today's American population is like a ``nuclear reactor without control rods,'' a set-up for an ``uncontrolled smallpox chain reaction'' (Preston).

Transmission is generally by airborne spread from close contacts (say within 10 feet). The virus does retain infectivity for long periods outside the host, so transmission from items such as contaminated bedding is possible though probably infrequent. Patients are infectious from the time that the rash appears, about 3 to 6 days after the onset of fever. Although patients are generally too sick to be ambulatory, it is thought that some close contacts may harbor the virus in their throats and transmit it without becoming ill (WHO Bull 1973;48:523-527). The incubation period averages 12 days, and contacts are quarantined for at least 17 days. Contacts should be immediately vaccinated, even if they were vaccinated in the past. In the 1960s, two-thirds of smallpox victims had a previous vaccination scar (McClain, Cpt. 27 in Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare, 1997).

The typical smallpox rash begins on the face, hands, then legs, and spreads centrally to the trunk (a ``centrifugal'' distribution). Lesions are more abundant on the face and extremities, and involve the palms and soles. In contrast to varicella (chickenpox), lesions on one part of the body are generally in the same stage of development, progressing from macules (spots) to papules (bumps) to vesicles (blisters) to pustules, which develop umbilications (central depressions), then scabs. The patient is infectious until all the scabs separate.

In flat-type smallpox (2 to 5%), skin lesions are small and soft, accompanied by severe systemic toxicity, with 95% fatalities in unvaccinated patients (vs. 30% in typical smallpox). In hemorrhagic smallpox, the patient usually dies before the skin lesions develop (McClain).

The odor of smallpox is said to be quite distinctive.

Unlike anthrax, smallpox is not treatable with antibiotics. A high index of suspicion, rapid diagnosis, and aggressive public health response to quarantine contacts and vaccinate if possible are the only tools currently available to prevent death on a massive scale.



Routine Vaccination?

Current plans are to stockpile smallpox vaccine, not distribute it, because of vaccine toxicity. Though not nearly as bad as the variolization of John Adams's day-which caused severe smallpox in about 1 in 200 inoculations-about 1 in 1,000 persons suffered some adverse reaction to vaccinia. Inadvertent autoinoculation of another site (or another person) was most frequent; ocular vaccinia, which can cause corneal scarring, was the most troublesome. In children under the age of 5, as many as 6 per 1,000 suffered an encephalitis, followed by serious neurological impairment or death. Progressive vaccinia primarily occurs in persons with immunodeficiency and is 75% fatal. In persons with eczema, eczema vaccinatum could be severe or even fatal. Primary vaccination of pregnant women has caused fetal vaccinia, with fetal or early postnatal death.

Among those disagreeing with this government policy is Amherst biologist Paul W. Ewald. ``If you wait until a crisis is at hand, you lose a chance to have careful analysis on a patient-by-patient basis of the risks posed by vaccinating.'' Moreover, people vary greatly in their tolerance for risk as well as their tolerance for vaccines. The decision involves weighing imponderables, and individuals are best qualified to make this decision for themselves (Rauch, Atlantic Monthly 12/01).

An Associated Press poll showed that 60% of American adults would choose to get vaccinated if they could (Deroy Murdock, National Review Online, 11/26/01).

A prepared population is a less attractive target. ``Enough vaccine to protect the entire American population could be stored in a building smaller than a garage, and the vaccine would last for decades before it had to be replaced,'' writes Richard Preston. ``That would pretty much remove smallpox from the arsenal of a terrorist. It would also take smallpox away from Saddam Hussein far more effectively (and cheaply) than bombing his laboratories'' (NY Times 4/-21/98).



The FDA Road Block

Sixty years ago, U.S. industry, using untrained workers, could build a ship in less than 5 days. Novavax, a small biotech firm in Maryland says it could make 16 million doses of smallpox doses in two weeks-except for one thing: the FDA.

The previous vaccine was made of dried calf pus. Drug companies have switched to advanced cell culture techniques to make vaccines. If the FDA treats smallpox vaccine thus made as a new drug, it could take 6 years to run the regulatory maze.

A ``wartime FDA'' is needed-but is unlikely to happen without intense public pressure (Wall St J 11/15/01).



Are You Immune?

Although a public web site states that smallpox vaccination only lasts 3 to 5 years, some researchers believe that those born before 1970, who were vaccinated in infancy, may have significant residual protection. In a 1902-1903 outbreak in England, 93% of persons age 50 and older, who had received vaccine once in infancy, escaped severe disease or death, whereas 6 of 12 unvaccinated persons in that age bracket got a serious case and died.

Many uncertainties remain. James Leduc, leading smallpox authority at the CDC, states: ``We have a disease and a scientific database that really stopped progressing 20 years ago'' (Science 2001;294:985). Except possibly in Russia.



Do Biological Weapons Work?

One consequence of the end of the U.S. offensive bioweap-ons program in 1969, as a result of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, was the loss of technical understanding of these weapons. Many scientists believe that such weapons don't work: they are uncontrollable, liable to infect their users, or impractical. A handful of influential scientists also held pas-sionately to the view that the Soviet Union was not violating the Conven-tion-despite intelligence reports that Biopreparat was set up in 1973, the year after the USSR signed the agreement.

Ken Alibek, deputy chief of research and production for Biopreparat before his defection, responded to this view about bioweapons: ``You test them to find out. You learn how to make them work,'' he told Richard Preston. ``I had a meeting yesterday at a defense agency. They knew absolutely nothing about biological weapons. They want to develop protection against them, but all their expertise is in nuclear weapons. I can say I don't believe in nuclear weapons work. Nuclear weapons destroy everything. Biological weapons are more .. beneficial... They don't destroy buildings, they only destroy vital activity.... People'' (New Yorker 3/9/98). The ultimate capitalist weapon?

From the first defector from Biopreparat, Vladimir Pasech-nik, Western intelligence learned that the U.S. was a ``deep target''-far enough away so that the Soviet Union wouldn't be contaminated. Inspectors found the same problem there as in Iraq: denials, evasions, large rooms stripped of equipment. ``These people just sat there and lied to us, and lied, and lied.''

William Patrick, one of a handful of living American scientists with a hands-on understanding of bioweapons, had doubts about whether bioweapons work-until the summer of 1968. At that time, a long series of open-air tests was conducted downwind from Johnston Atoll, as elaborate as the first tests of the hydrogen bomb, involving enough ships to constitute the world's fifth largest navy. The method: a line-source laydown. A Marine Phantom jet flew low, releasing dust from a single pod under its wing.

U.N. inspectors found a videotape of an Iraqi Phantom jet doing a line-source laydown over the desert.

Though the agent used was susceptible to antibiotics, Dr. Patrick pointed out that to treat 30,000 infections in, say, Frederick, MD, would require more than 2 tons of antibiotics, delivered overnight. ``There isn't that much antibiotic stored anywhere in the United States'' (Preston, ibid.).

Then there's the problem of bioengineered smallpox or other agents, also discussed in Preston's article (available at http:// cryptome.org/bioweap.htm).



Other Sources

* DDP CD-ROM, 1992-1999: especially talks by Conrad Chester and Joseph Douglass (call 520-325-2680).

* The Medical Sentinel, winter 2001: emphasis on the role of Cuba, as in the West Nile virus (leave request at 800-419-4777, available free while supplies last).

* Scenarios: the prepared vs. the unprepared community: Living Terrors by Osterholm & Schwartz, discusses an intention-al smallpox release in two cities.

* A destructive response: The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, see www.aapsonline.org for analysis.

* On-line medical info: Search www.thelancet.com.

http://www.oism.org/cdp/jan2002.htm

[J.B. Stone]

DUE TO PUBLIC AND CONGRESSIONAL PRESSURE, THE U.S. DOD AND VA HAVE TASKED THE INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE [IOM] TO ENACT A THREE-YEAR, $3 MILLION DOLLAR STUDY ON THE LONG TERM EFFECTS OF PROJECT 112/SHAD.

TO DATE, I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND ANY EVIDENCE THAT THEY HAVE MADE ANY PROGRESS WHATSOEVER IN THE LAST YEAR.

EARLY ON IN THE STUDY, I WAS TOLD BY GOVERNMENTAL SOURCES THAT THEY WOULD BE CONTACTING ALL SURVIVING PROJECT 112/SHAD VETERANS.

THEY ALSO TOLD ME THAT THEY DID NOT INTEND TO CONTACT THE FAMILIES OF THE DECEASED AS IT WAS INCONVENIENT.

DOES THIS APPEAR TO BE A LEGITIMATE SCIENTIFIC STUDY TO YOU?

~~~~~~

Long-term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD



IOM Project: Long-term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD



SHAD Advisory Panel

Advisory Panel for the Study of Long-term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense)



Daniel H., Freeman, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor, Preventive Medicine and Community Health
University of Texas Medical Branch

Dan G. Blazer, M.D., Ph.D. (IOM)
J.P. Gibbons Professor of Psychiatry
Duke University Medical Center

Donald S. Burke, M.D.
Professor and Associate Chairman
Department of International Health and Epidemiology
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Linda D. Cowan, M.P.H., Ph.D.
George Lynn Cross Research Professor
University of Oklahoma College of Public Health

Gregory C. Gray, M.D., M.P.H.
Professor, Department of Epidemiology
College of Public Health University of Iowa

Peter S. Spencer, Ph.D.
Center for Research on Occupational and Enviromental Toxicology
Oregon Health and Science University

Selected Staff:

Richard N. Miller, M.D., M.P.H.
Board Director
(202) 334-1774
E-Mail: rmiller@nas.edu

William F. Page, Ph.D.
Study Director
(202) 334-2828
E-Mail: wpage@nas.edu

Pamela Ramey-McCray
Administrative Assistant
(202)334-3016
E-Mail: pmccray@nas.edu

MFUA FAX: (202) 334-2685

http://www.iom.edu/subpage.asp?id=6879

~~~~~~

IF YOU CAN GET ANY INFORMATION REGARDING THEIR MATERIAL PROGRESS, LET ME KNOW....

[J.B. Stone]

PLEASE SEE THIS THREAD FOR HISTORICAL TIME LINE DATA:

http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewt ... 651#131480

[J.B. Stone]

DATA FROM CURRENT U.S. MILITARY MEDICAL RESEARCH HANDBOOK REGARDING BIO-CHEMICAL WARFARE:

Table of Contents
Introduction 1

History of Biological Warfare and Current Threat 2

Distinguishing Between Natural and Intentional
Disease Outbreaks 6

Ten Steps in the MAnagement of Biological Casualties
on the Battlefield 9

Bacterial Agents 13

Anthrax 14

Brucellosis 19

Glanders and Melioidosis 23

Plague 28

Q Fever 33

Tularemia 37

Viral Agents 43

Smallpox 44

Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis 49

Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers 54

Biological Toxins 62

Botulinum 63

Ricin 70

Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B 74

T-2 Mycotoxins 78

Detection 82

Personal Protection 83

Decontamination 86

Appendix A: Glossary of Medical Terms
Appendix B: Patient Isolation Precautions
Appendix C: BW Agent Characteristics
Appendix D: BW Agent Vaccines, Therapeutics and Prophylactics
Appendix E: Medical Sample Collection for BW Agents
Appendix F: Specimens for Laboratory Diagnosis
Appendix G: BW Agent Laboratory Identification
Appendix H: Differential Diagnosis - Toxins vs. Nerve Agents
Appendix I: Comparative Lethality - Toxins vs. Chemical Agents
Appendix J: Aerosol Toxicity
Appendix K: References and Emergency Response Contacts

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO AGENTS TESTED AND EXPERIMENTED WITH DURING PROJECT 112/SHAD ON LAND AND SEA FROM 1962 TO 1973:

BACTERIAL AGENTS

Bacteria are unicellular organisms. They vary in shape and size from spherical cells - cocci - with a diameter of 0.5-1.0 µ m (micrometer), to long rod-shaped organisms - bacilli - which may be from 1-5 µ m in size. Chains of bacilli may exceed 50 µ m in length. The shape of the bacterial cell is determined by the rigid cell wall. The interior of the cell contains the nuclear material (DNA), cytoplasm, and cell membrane, that are necessary for the life of the bacterium. Many bacteria also have glycoproteins on their outer surfaces which aid in bacterial attachment to cell surface receptors. Under special circumstances some types of bacteria can transform into spores. The spore of the bacterial cell is more resistant to cold, heat, drying, chemicals and radiation than the vegetative bacterium itself. Spores are a dormant form of the bacterium and, like the seeds of plants, they can germinate when conditions are favorable.

The term rickettsia generally applies to very small, gram-negative coccobacillary organisms of the genera Rickettsia and Coxiella. Rickettsiae are unique from classical bacteria in their inability to grow (with rare exceptions) in the absence of a living host cell, but many are susceptible to treatment with antibiotics. Bacteria generally cause disease in human beings and animals by one of two mechanisms: by invading host tissues, and by producing poisons (toxins). Many pathogenic bacteria utilize both mechanisms. The diseases they produce often respond to specific therapy with antibiotics. It is important to distinguish between the disease- causing organism and the name of the disease it causes (in parentheses below).

This manual covers several of the bacteria or rickettsiae considered to be potential BW threat agents: Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax), Brucella spp. (Brucellosis), Burkholderia mallei (Glanders), Burholderia pseudomallei (melioidosis), Yersinia pestis (Plague), Francisella tularensis (Tularemia), and Coxiella burnetii (Q Fever). Page 21

ANTHRAX
SUMMARY
Signs and Symptoms: Incubation period is generally 1-6 days, although longer periods have been noted. Fever, malaise, fatigue, cough and mild chest discomfort progresses to severe respiratory distress with dyspnea, diaphoresis, stridor, cyanosis, and shock. Death typically occurs within 24-36 hours after onset of severe symptoms.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE Anthrax spores were weaponized by the United States in the 1950's and 1960's before the old U.S. offensive program was terminated. Other countries have weaponized this agent or are suspected of doing so. Anthrax bacteria are easy to cultivate and spore production is readily induced. Moreover, the spores are highly resistant to sunlight, heat and disinfectants - properties which could be advantageous when choosing a bacterial weapon. Iraq admitted to a United Nations inspection team in August of 1991 that it had performed research on the offensive use of B. anthracis prior to the Persian Gulf War, and in 1995 Iraq admitted to weaponizing anthrax.

A recent defector from the former Soviet Union's biological weapons program revealed that the Soviets had produced anthrax in ton quantities for use as a weapon. This agent could be produced in either a wet or dried form, stabilized for weaponization by an adversary and delivered as an aerosol cloud either from a line source such as an aircraft flying upwind of friendly positions, or as a point source from a spray device. Coverage of a large ground area could also be theoretically facilitated by multiple spray bomblets disseminated from a missile warhead at a predetermined height above the ground.

PLAGUE SUMMARY

Signs and Symptoms: Pneumonic plague begins after an incubation period of
1-6 days, with high fever, chills, headache, malaise, followed by cough (often with hemoptysis), progressing rapidly to dyspnea, stridor, cyanosis, and death. Gastrointestinal symptoms are often present. Death results from respiratory failure, circulatory collapse, and a bleeding diathesis. Bubonic plague, featuring high fever, malaise, and painful lymph nodes (buboes) may progress spontaneously to the septicemic form (septic shock, thrombosis, DIC) or to the pneumonic form.
bubonic plague, and Respiratory Droplet Precautions for suspected pneumonic plague. Y. pestis can survive in the environment for varying periods, but is susceptible to heat, disinfectants, and exposure to sunlight. Soap and water is effective if decon is needed. Take measures to prevent local disease cycles if vectors (fleas) and reservoirs (rodents) are present.

[FLEAS AND RODENTS WERE RAISED AT FORT DOUGLAS OR DUGWAY PROVING GROUND IF YOU PREFER.....THE TESTS AT BAKER ISLAND ON THE EQUATOR ARE RUMORED TO HAVE UTILIZED A PARTICULARLY VIRULENT DISEASE CARRIED BY MOSQUITOS RELEASED FROM THE HELO DECK OF THE USS GEORGE EASTMAN, YAG-39]

Q FEVER SUMMARY Signs and Symptoms: Fever, cough, and pleuritic chest pain may occur as early as ten days after exposure. Patients are not generally critically ill, and the illness lasts from 2 days to 2 weeks. Diagnosis: Q fever is not a clinically distinct illness and may resemble a viral illness or other types of atypical pneumonia. The diagnosis is confirmed serologically. Treatment: Q fever is generally a self-limited illness even without treatment, but tetracycline or doxycycline should be given orally for 5 to 7 days to prevent complications of the disease. Q fever endocarditis (rare) is much more difficult to treat.

[CONTRARY TO U.S. "MEDICAL" STUDIES, IT IS HIGHLY LIKELY THAT PROJECT 112/SHAD VETERANS SUCH AS MYSELF MAY VERY WELL BE SUFFERING FROM SOME SORT OF LINGERING EFFECTS. MANY HAVE CURIOUS HEART PROBLEMS WHO ARE IN RELATIVELY GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION OTHERWISE...

Q fever endocarditis (rare) is much more difficult to treat.

ESPECIALLY IF YOU REFUSE TO DIAGNOSE IT...]

OVERVIEW The endemic form of Q fever is a zoonotic disease caused by the rickettsia, Coxiella burnetii. Its natural reservoirs are sheep, cattle, goats, dogs, cats and birds. The organism grows to especially high concentrations in placental tissues. The infected animals do not develop the disease, but do shed large numbers of the organisms in placental tissues and body fluids including milk, urine, and feces. Exposure to infected animals at parturition is an important risk factor for endemic disease. Humans acquire the disease by inhalation of aerosols contaminated with the organisms.

Farmers and abattoir workers are at greatest risk occupationally. A biological warfare attack with Q fever would cause a disease similar to that occurring naturally. Q fever is also a significant hazard in laboratory personnel who are working with the organism.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

Q fever was first described in Australia and called “Query fever” because the causative agent was initially unknown. Coxiella burnetii, discovered in 1937, is a rickettsial organism that is resistant to heat and desiccation and highly infectious by the aerosol route. A single inhaled organism may produce clinical illness. For all of these reasons, Q fever could be used by an adversary as an incapacitating biological warfare agent.

[Q FEVER, OR COXIELLA BURNETII, CAN INFECT A HUMAN HOST WITH A SINGLE ORGANISM...!!! AS OPPOSED TO HUNDREDS OF SPORES TO MAKE ANTHRAX SUSTAINABLE IN ONES SYSTEM...!!!]

TULAREMIA

SUMMARY
Signs and Symptoms: Ulceroglandular tularemia presents with a local ulcer and regional lymphadenopathy, fever, chills, headache and malaise. Typhoidal tularemia presents with fever, headache, malaise, substernal discomfort, prostration, weight loss and a non-productive cough.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

Tularemia was recognized in Japan in the early 1800’s and in Russia in 1926. In the early 1900’s, American workers investigating suspected plague epidemics in San Francisco isolated the organism and named it Bacterium tularense after Tulare County, California where the work was performed. Dr. Edward Francis, USPHS, established the cause of deer-fly fever as Bacterium tularense and subsequently devoted his life to researching the organism and disease, hence, the organism was later renamed Francisella tularensis Francisella tularensis was weaponized by the United States in the 1950's and 1960's during the U.S. offensive biowarfare program, and other countries are suspected to have weaponized this agent. This organism could potentially be stabilized for weaponization by an adversary and theoretically produced in either a wet or dried form, for delivery against U.S. forces in a similar fashion to the other bacteria discussed in this handbook.

SMALLPOX

SUMMARY

Signs and Symptoms: Clinical manifestations begin acutely with malaise, fever, rigors, vomiting, headache, and backache. 2-3 days later lesions appear which quickly progress from macules to papules, and eventually to pustular vesicles. They are more abundant on the extremities and face, and develop synchronously.

OVERVIEW

Smallpox is caused by the Orthopox virus, variola, which occurs in at least two strains, variola major and the milder disease, variola minor. Despite the global eradication of smallpox and continued availability of a vaccine, the potential weaponization of variola continues to pose a military threat. This threat can be attributed to the aerosol infectivity of the virus, the relative ease of large-scale production, and an increasingly Orthopoxvirus-naive populace. Although the fully developed cutaneous eruption of smallpox is unique, earlier stages of the rash could be mistaken for varicella. Secondary spread of infection constitutes a nosocomial hazard from the time of onset of a smallpox patient's exanthem until scabs have separated. Quarantine with respiratory isolation should be applied to secondary contacts for 17 days post-exposure. Vaccinia vaccination and vaccinia immune globulin each possess some efficacy in post-exposure prophylaxis.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

Endemic smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 by the World Health Organization (WHO). Although two WHO-approved repositories of variola virus remain at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta and the Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow, the extent of clandestine stockpiles in other parts of the world remains unknown. In January 1996, WHO’s governing board recommended that all stocks of smallpox be destroyed by 30 June 1999. However, action on this was delayed by the Clinton administration in May 1999 due to concerns over the need for further study of the virus given its potential as a biological warfare agent. The smallpox stockpiles are now scheduled for destruction on 30 June 2002.

The United States stopped vaccinating its military population in 1989 and civilians in the early 1980s. These populations are now susceptible to variola major, although recruits immunized in 1989 may retain some degree of immunity. Variola may have been used by the British Army against native Americans by giving them contaminated blankets from the beds of smallpox victims during the eighteenth century. Japan considered the use of smallpox as a BW weapon in World War II and it has been considered as a possible threat agent against US forces for many years. In addition, the former Soviet Union is reported to have produced and stockpiled massive quantities of the virus for use as a biological weapon. It is not known whether these stockpiles still exist in Russia.

[THE RUSSIANS HAVE DERIVED A VERSION OF SMALLPOX CROSSED WITH EBOLA VIRUS = EBOLA-POX...!!!]

VENEZUELAN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS

SUMMARY

Signs and Symptoms: Incubation period 1-6 days. Acute systemic febrile illness with encephalitis developing in a small percentage (4% children; < 1% adults). Generalized malaise, spiking fevers, rigors, severe headache, photophobia, and myalgias for 24-72 hours. Nausea, vomiting, cough, sore throat, and diarrhea may follow. Full recovery from malaise and fatigue takes 1-
2 weeks. The incidence of CNS disease and associated morbidity and mortality would be much higher after a BW attack.

OVERVIEW

The Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus complex is a group of eight mosquito-borne alphaviruses that are endemic in northern South America and Trinidad and causes rare cases of human encephalitis in Central America, Mexico, and Florida. These viruses can cause severe diseases in humans and Equidae (horses, mules, burros and donkeys). Natural infections are acquired by the bites of a wide variety of mosquitoes. Equidae serve as amplifying hosts and source of mosquito infection.

Western and Eastern Equine Encephalitis viruses are similar to the VEE complex, are often difficult to distinguish clinically, and share similar aspects of transmission and epidemiology. The human infective dose for VEE is considered to be 10-100 organisms, which is one of the principal reasons that VEE is considered a militarily effective BW agent. Neither the population density of infected mosquitoes nor the aerosol concentration of virus particles has to be great to allow significant transmission of VEE in a BW attack. There is no evidence of direct human-to-human or horse-to-human transmission. Natural aerosol transmission is not known to occur. VEE particles are not considered stable in the environment, and are thus not as persistent as the bacteria responsible for Q fever, tularemia or anthrax. Heat and standard disinfectants can easily kill the VEE virus complex.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

Between 1969 and 1971, an epizootic of a "highly pathogenic strain" of VEE emerged in Guatemala, moved through Mexico, and entered Texas in June
1971. This strain was virulent in both equine species and humans. In Mexico, there were 8,000-10,000 equine deaths, "tens of thousands" of equine cases, and 17,000 human cases (no human deaths). Over 10,000 horses in Texas died. Once the Texas border was breached, a national emergency was declared and resources were mobilized to vaccinate equines in 20 states (95% of all horses and donkeys were vaccinated; over 3.2 million animals), establish equine quarantines, and control mosquito populations with broad-scale insecticide use in the Rio Grande Valley and along the Gulf Coast. A second VEE outbreak in
1995 in Venezuela and Columbia involved over 75,000 human cases and over
20 deaths.

VEE is better characterized than EEE or WEE, primarily because it was tested as a BW agent during the U.S. offensive program in the 1950's and
1960's. Other countries have also been or are suspected to have weaponized this agent. In compliance with President Nixon's National Security Decision No. 35 of November 1969 to destroy the BW microbial stockpile, all existing stocks of VEE in the U.S. were publicly destroyed.

These viruses could theoretically be produced in large amounts in either a wet or dried form by relatively unsophisticated and inexpensive systems. This form of the VEE virus complex could be intentionally disseminated as an aerosol and would be highly infectious. It could also be spread by the purposeful dissemination of infected mosquitoes, which can probably transmit the virus throughout their lives. The VEE complex is relatively stable during the storage and manipulation procedures necessary for weaponization. In natural human epidemics, severe and often fatal encephalitis in Equidae (30-90% mortality) always precedes disease in humans.

However, a biological warfare attack with virus intentionally disseminated as an aerosol would most likely cause human disease as a primary event or simultaneously with Equidae. During natural epidemics, illness or death in wild or free ranging Equidae may not be recognized before the onset of human disease, thus a natural epidemic could be confused with a BW event, and data on onset of disease should be considered with caution. A more reliable method for determining the likelihood of a BW event would be the presence of VEE outside of its natural geographic range.

[WEST NILE VIRUS EPIDEMIC...???]

A biological warfare attack in a region populated by Equidae and appropriate mosquito vectors could initiate an epizootic/epidemic.

[HOWEVER...an associate that was present at VEE testing contracted some form of the disease....his wife now has severe MS and his children and grandchildren are suffering premature births and deaths due to malformities...How does a Human get a HORSE disease???]

VIRAL HEMORRHAGIC FEVERS

SUMMARY

Signs and Symptoms: VHFs are febrile illnesses which can feature flushing of the face and chest, petechiae, bleeding, edema, hypotension, and shock. Malaise, myalgias, headache, vomiting, and diarrhea may occur in any of the hemorrhagic fevers.

OVERVIEW

The viral hemorrhagic fevers are a diverse group of illnesses caused by RNA viruses from four viral families. The Arenaviridae include the etiologic agents of Argentine, Bolivian, and Venezuelan hemorrhagic fevers, and Lassa fever. The Bunyaviridae include the members of the Hantavirus genus, the Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever virus from the Nairovirus genus, and the Rift Valley fever virus from the Phlebovirus genus; the Filoviridae include Ebola and Marburg viruses; and the Flaviviridae include dengue and yellow fever viruses. These viruses are spread in a variety of ways; some may be transmitted to humans through a respiratory portal of entry. Although evidence for weaponization does not exist for many of these viruses, they are included in this handbook because of their potential for aerosol dissemination or weaponization, or likelihood for confusion with similar agents that might be weaponized.

BIOLOGICAL TOXINS

Toxins are harmful substances produced by living organisms (animals, plants, microbes). Features that distinguish them from chemical agents, such as VX, cyanide, or mustard, include being not man-made, non-volatile (no vapor hazard), usually not dermally active (mycotoxins are the exception), and generally much more toxic per weight than chemical agents. Their lack of volatility is very important and makes them unlikely to produce either secondary or person-to-person exposures, or a persistent environmental hazard. A toxin’s utility as an aerosol weapon is determined by its toxicity, stability, and ease of production.

The bacterial toxins, such as botulinum toxins, are the most toxic substances by weight known (Appendix I). Less toxic compounds, such as the mycotoxins, are thousands of times less toxic than botulinum, and have limited aerosol potential. The relationship between aerosol toxicity and the quantity of toxin required for an effective open-air exposure is shown in Appendix J, which demonstrates that for some agents such as the mycotoxins and ricin, very large quantities (tons) would be needed for an effective open-air attack. Stability limits the open-air potential of some toxins. For example, botulinum and tetanus toxins are large molecular weight proteins, and are easily denatured by environmental factors (heat, dessication, UV light), thus posing little downwind threat.
Finally, some toxins, such as saxitoxin, might be both stable and highly toxic, but are so difficult to extract that they can only feasibly be produced in minute quantities. As with all biological weapons, potential to cause incapacitation as well as lethality must be considered. Depending on the goals of an adversary, incapacitating agents may be more effective than lethal agents due to the overwhelming demand on the medical and evacuation infrastructure, or the expected panic in the population. Several toxins such as SEB, cause significant illness at doses much lower than that required for lethality, and thus pose a significant incapacitating threat. This manual will cover four toxins considered to be among the most likely to be used against U.S. military and civilian targets: botulinum toxins, ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB), and T-2 mycotoxins.

BOTULINUM

SUMMARY

Signs and Symptoms: Usually begins with cranial nerve palsies, including ptosis, blurred vision, diplopia, dry mouth and throat, dysphagia, and dysphonia. This is followed by symmetrical descending flaccid paralysis, with generalized weakness and progression to respiratory failure. Symptoms begin as early as
12-36 hours after inhalation, but may take several days after exposure to low doses of toxin.

STAPHYLOCOCCAL ENTEROTOXIN B

SUMMARY

Signs and Symptoms: Latent period of 3-12 hours after aerosol exposure is followed by sudden onset of fever, chills, headache, myalgia, and nonproductive cough. Some patients may develop shortness of breath and retrosternal chest pain. Patients tend to plateau rapidly to a fairly stable clinical state. Fever may last 2 to 5 days, and cough may persist for up to 4 weeks. Patients may also present with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea if they swallow the toxin. Presumably, higher exposure can lead to septic shock and death.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

SEB is the second most common source of outbreaks of food poisoning. Often these outbreaks occur in a setting such as a church picnic or other community event, due to common source exposure in which contaminated food is consumed. Although an aerosolized SEB toxin weapon would not likely produce significant mortality, it could render 80 percent or more of exposed personnel clinically ill and unable to perform their mission for 1-2 weeks. The demand on the medical and logistical systems could be overwhelming. For these reasons, SEB was one of the 7 biological agents stockpiled by the U.S. during its old bioweapons program, which was terminated in 1969.

[
It could render 80 percent or more of exposed personnel clinically ill and unable to perform their mission for 1-2 weeks. The demand on the medical and logistical systems could be overwhelming.

THESE DISEASES ARE EASILY REPLICATED...I WAS EXPOSED TO SEB...AND AM STILL SICK 30 YEARS LATER...]

T-2 MYCOTOXINS

SUMMARY

Signs and symptoms: Exposure causes skin pain, pruritus, redness, vesicles, necrosis and sloughing of the epidermis. Effects on the airway include nose and throat pain, nasal discharge, itching and sneezing, cough, dyspnea, wheezing, chest pain and hemoptysis. Toxin also produces effects after ingestion or eye contact. Severe intoxication results in prostration, weakness, ataxia, collapse, shock, and death.

HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE

The potential for use as a BW toxin was demonstrated to the Russian military shortly after World War II when flour contaminated with species of Fusarium was unknowingly baked into bread that was ingested by civilians. Some developed a protracted lethal illness called alimentary toxic aleukia (ATA) characterized by initial symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, prostration, and within days fever, chills, myalgias and bone marrow depression with granulocytopenia and secondary sepsis. Survival beyond this point allowed the development of painful pharyngeal/laryngeal ulceration and diffuse bleeding into the skin (petechiae and ecchymoses), melena, bloody diarrhea, hematuria, hematemesis, epistaxis and vaginal bleeding. Pancytopenia, and gastrointestinal ulceration and erosion were secondary to the ability of these toxins to profoundly arrest bone marrow and mucosal protein synthesis and cell cycle progression through DNA replication.

Mycotoxins allegedly were released from aircraft in the "yellow rain" incidents in Laos (1975-81), Kampuchea (1979-81), and Afghanistan (1979-81). It has been estimated that there were more than 6,300 deaths in Laos, 1,000 in Kampuchea, and 3,042 in Afghanistan. The alleged victims were usually unarmed civilians or guerrilla forces. These groups were not protected with masks or chemical protective clothing and had little or no capability of destroying the attacking enemy aircraft. These attacks were alleged to have occurred in remote jungle areas, which made confirmation of attacks and recovery of agent extremely difficult. Some investigators have claimed that the “yellow clouds” were, in fact, bee feces produced by swarms of migrating insects. Much controversy has centered upon the veracity of eyewitness and victim accounts, but there is evidence to make these allegations of BW agent use in these areas possible.

[WHILE I DECLINE TO REVEAL THE SOURCE OF MY INFORMATION AT THIS TIME, IT IS HIGHLY LIKELY THAT SIMILAR AGENTS WERE SPREAD BY AIRCRAFT, PBR'S, SWIFT BOATS, AND EXPERIMENTAL HOVERCRAFT DURING VIETNAM AS WELL AS OUTSIDE THE BORDERS OF DECLARED COMBAT IN LAOS AND CAMBODIA CONCURRENT TO THAT CONFLICT...]

~~~~~~~~

THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE DETAILS AVAILABLE IN THIS HANDBOOK:

www.usamriid.army.mil/education/blueboo ... er4-02.pdf

[J.B. Stone]

Here is an excerpt from just one of many factual reports the Vietnam Veterans of America [VVA] has uncovered on behalf of the Project 112/SHAD Veterans:

Tularemia, caused by the bacteria pasteurella tularensis, which was used in Shady Grove, "is not as potent as anthrax or smallpox, but it’s not as benign as Q Fever," said Fox. For example, it is directly related to plague. "If treated early, most often people exposed to tularemia have a favorable outcome," said Fox. But, he pointed out, the Army BW program eventually discarded both tularemia and another of its cousins, brucellosis, "because it’s very easy for people handling them to come down with the disease. There’s no real vaccine or ability to protect your own people."

As for sarin, an extremely potent chemical nerve agent that is fatal in high doses, very little is needed to compromise the human nervous system. The National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine concluded that there is suggestive evidence of long-term health damage from sarin exposure, including fatigue, headache, visual disturbances, asthenia, shoulder stiffness, and symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

http://www.vva.org/TheVeteran/2002_01/hazardous.htm

I would like to applaud the VVA for all their efforts as they are the ONLY Veteran's Service Organization that is making any concrete headway on Project 112/SHAD issues at this time. The VFW, DAV, AmVets, American Legion, et al seem to be asleep at the wheel on this one.

There is also an interesting phenomenon in the U.S. Congress regarding the disclosure and rectification of these matters. Virtually all of the Representatives that have made any demonstrable progress on behalf of the Veterans have been Democrats. I'm not able to define the political pressures that cause the Republicans to look the other way.

It's not as if there were ANY elected official who does NOT want to place a star by his name for helping Veterans. And, the whole program was initiated during the JFK - LBJ days and ended pretty much when Nixon was in office, so there shouldn't be ANY reason why the Republicans would shy away from issues stemming from 30 to 40 years ago.

In any event, I would personally tend to believe whole-heartedly the account referenced above. You see, that list of symptoms for exposure to Sarin Gas is an EXACT match for what has taked its toll on me over the last 30 years. I have experienced all those items in one form or another ever since 1970:

chronic fatigue, headache, visual disturbances, asthenia, shoulder stiffness, and symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

There is not a day that goes by that I don't have to deal with one or more of these maladies.....then, of course, there's the OTHER two dozen physical ailments that reside in my body....no telling WHERE I got those from or what caused them, because the U.S. DOD & VA will NOT reveal the full extent of the activities of Project SHAD lest myself and others actually benefit from some healing process.

It's way more economically attractive to just ignore the lot of us as we dwindle day by day.

There simply is NO glory, profit, well-being, sense of accomplishment, or feeling of pride that results from such activity. You can add to that the reprisals from those who somehow think we are "un-patriotic" for wanting some straight answers, medical care and/or financial compensation as circumstances would require.

But, let a stray dog get run over in Baghdad and it will hit the front page of every newspaper west of Boston overnight....???

Perhaps NOW you are beginning to fathom what it means when we ask for your help and how it might even benefit you in your safe, sound, snug surroundings.

I certainly hope so.

J.B. Stone, Human Test Rat

[J.B. Stone]

More SHAD information from the VVA, here:

http://www.vva.org/shad/index.htm

SHAD in the News:

Pentagon Ends Investigation on Secret Chemical Tests
July 14, 2003 - Army Times

The Pentagon has completed its investigation into secret chemical and germ warfare tests conducted 30 to 40 years ago on land and at sea. (more)

Secret Bio, Chem Tests Revealed
Associated Press - July 1, 2003

Several House members are asking Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to keep alive the Pentagon's investigation into 50 chemical and biological weapons tests in the 1960s that involved 5,842 military personnel. (more)

Vets Press Department of Defense for Answers
July 1, 2003 - Florida Today

While America was at war in Vietnam in the 1960s, another painful -- and secret -- chapter in the nation's military history was playing out in far-flung locations ranging from the Pacific Ocean to the...(more)

Reports Detail Tests of Troops for Exposures
July 1, 2003 - NY Times

The Pentagon made public today a final set of reports on a cold war program that tested...(more)

SHAD - Project 112
Deseret Test Center Investigation Draws To A Close
Press release provided courtesy of the Department of DefenseWASHINGTON,

June 30, 2003 (DeploymentLINK) - The Department of Defense completed today its nearly three-year investigation of operational tests conducted in the 1960s.(more)

SHAD UPDATE:
VVA Sues Accountable Federal Officials
There's an old saying: If you don't like the system, change it. That's often followed by another old saying about how some things are easier said than done. Veterans have long complained of the slow, laborious, even labyrinthine process the Department of Veterans Affairs requires them to undergo in order to file a claim. (more)

Hazardous Duty:
The Pentagon's Secret Chemical Spraying Program
To Homer Tack and R.J. Goin and about three hundred other sailors aboard the USS "Power", the January 1965 cruise from Florida to Newfoundland was supposed to be just another routine port-of-call mission. (more)

Access Denied: How the Pentagon and the VA Tried to Conceal Biological Tests
The previous issue of The VVA Veteran reported on Project SHAD--Shipboard Hazard and Defense--the U.S. military's secret series of 113 separate chemical and biological warfare tests conducted at sea in the 1960s. (more)

Eyewitness To SHAD
Jack Alderson, a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, was one of the principal individuals involved in the original series of SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) tests in the Pacific in 1965. He has spent the better part of the last decade lobbying Congress...(more)

Exposure to Hazardous Materials
Much credit and thanks go to Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Neb.) for introducing the Veterans Right to Know bill in Congress the last week of June. This legislation will require establishment of a civilian-controlled declassification board to review all exposures...(more)

For SHAD related information from the VA go to www.va.gov/shad or call (800) 749-8387

Shipboard Hazard and Defense Program (SHAD) Disclosure

The SHAD program, part of the Cold War-era Project 112, tested the effects of chemical and biological attacks on U.S. military vessels, aircraft, and thousands of American service members. Some veterans who participated in the tests may not know that they may have been exposed to potentially harmful substances, while many who are aware of the dangers believe that their health has been affected. Every service member who was subjected to SHAD tests should be notified of their participation in order to evaluate their health. Therefore, the conferees required the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan to review and declassify all medically relevant information on Project 112 and SHAD within one year, and to identify participants so that the Veterans Administration may notify them and deliver proper benefits and care. In addition, the conferees required that the Government Accounting Office review the Secretary’s plan.

[J.B. Stone]

VVA Applauds House Action Authorizing Health Care for Project 112/ SHAD Veterans

9/15/03 10:45:00 AM

To: National Desk

Contact: Mokie Porter of Vietnam Veterans of America, 301-585-4000 Ext. 146

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- "Vietnam Veterans of America is gratified by the vote last week in the House that would authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide health care for veterans who participated in the military's testing of chemical and biological agents in the 1960s and early 1970s," said Thomas H. Corey, VVA national president. "We applaud members of the House for doing the right thing, and we urge members of the Senate to do so as well."

The bill would make veterans who participated in tests conducted as part of the secret Project 112 eligible for hospital care, medical services, and nursing home care for any illness, notwithstanding that there is insufficient medical evidence to conclude that such illness is attributable to such testing.

Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) was part of Project 112, which also included land-based tests conducted by the Department of Defense Deseret Test Center from 1962-73. The original bill was introduced by Rep. Ciro Rodriguez.

As part of Project 112, sailors and soldiers, many without their knowledge or consent, were exposed to a variety of chemical and biological agents and simulants. Thus far, the Department of Defense has identified some 5,843 veterans who participated in one or more of 50 Project 112 tests.

"While VVA is pleased with the action taken by the House, we will continue to push for a full accounting of the facts surrounding Project 112," Corey said. Last fall, VVA established a national task force to further investigate this issue.

Veterans who believe they might have been exposed should visit http://www.vva.org/shad, the VVA web site for information on Project 112/SHAD and potential exposure risks.

------

Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) is the nation's only congressionally chartered veterans service organization dedicated to the needs of Vietnam-era veterans and their families. VVA's founding principle is "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another."

http://www.usnewswire.com/
U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelea ... 7-09152003

THIS IS THE MOST RECENT EVENT IN THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH ABOUT PROJECT 112/SHAD....IT LOOKS GOOD, HOWEVER...

If the Bills put before Congress last session are not passed, this does NOTHING to reveal what actually was done to the people involved. Many have died agonizingly painful and premature deaths.

Without the information linking the ailments to the activities, no one can expect to receive any VA Disability Compensation benefits and many are unable to work.

So, while this is ONE step in the right direction, it leaves quite a bit to be desired to be considered as a "final" answer to the problems. This only serves to defuse the Veterans' ire over the short run and to make it LOOK as if progress is being made. While I won't personally turn down the medical assistance as it truly is a God Send, neither will this action prevent me from continuing to lobby politically, initiate law suits, and to speak out on behalf of the many fallen shipmates that have preceded me into Davy Jones's Locker and to continue to campaign for the release of the necessary data.

I suppose you could say that I'm a Man on a Mission.

So be it.

J.B. Stone, Human Test Rat

[J.B. Stone]

The 2004 defense appropriations bill Congress sent President Bush on Thursday would close former Adm. John Poindexter's old office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and bar DARPA from proceeding with all but four small, uncontroversial parts of the admiral's Terrorism Information Awareness research program.

AND, SO...

DARPA was ALSO involved in a hush-hush DOD think tank last fall, addressing information gathered from Project 112/SHAD, and had on its agenda actions designed to look into improved human test subject practices based on what was learned from SHAD...!!!

Which would stand to reason that DARPA or SOMEONE is STILL conducting human test subject research or it is planned in the near future....???

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.ph ... sebill.inc

VERY curious, indeed...!!!

[J.B. Stone]

FOR CANADA'S INVOLVEMENT IN PROJECT 112/SHAD, PLEASE SEE THE THREAD:

http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewt ... f6e9e7b402

While it would be convenient to lay the blame solely at the feet of the U.S. government, others, including the Canadian government had a role in constructing the shroud of silence.

During World War II, the Canadian, British and U.S. governments engaged in a coordinated program of both defensive and offensive biological weapons development, even though the use of such weapons was technically prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Convention.

This wartime program was initially justified because of the suspicion that Axis powers were developing biological warfare. But the Allied victory did not bring an end to the programs. Instead, the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain cranked up their tri-national co-operation, developing offensive weapons. Canadian scientists helped produce large amounts of botulinum and anthrax spores and conducted field trials at the Suffield experimental station in Alberta. Bombs and insects were tested as means of dispersal. The full story of this tri-national collaboration has yet to be fully revealed but it seems likely that Canadian scientists were aware of the activities of Unit 731.

~~~~~~

Guilford B. Reed and H.M. Barrett, professors at Queens and the University of Toronto respectively, also worked for Canada’s Defence Research Board that oversaw Canadian biological weapons development. In December 1947, they completed a secret report summarizing the state of knowledge related to biological warfare. It began: “With the exception of some isolated incidents in China, bacteriological warfare has not been used as weapon of war.”

In later versions of similar reports, references to China disappear. Otto Maass, head of the chemistry department of McGill and a key player in Canada’s biological warfare program, sat as a permanent Canadian representative on the U.S. biological war committee. Maass developed a close working relationship with Maj. Gen Alden Waitt, chief of the chemical corps at Fort Detrick. As it turns out, Waitt was the key figure at Fort Detrick who arranged immunity for Unit 731 officers. By early 1950, Canadian officials possessed full details of the scope of biological warfare employed in China from reports they received after Soviet trials of Unit 731 officers captured in Manchuria. The reports, which we now find were quite accurate, were dismissed at the time as Soviet propaganda. Soviet claims that biological weapons

~~~~~~

testing at Suffield had led to an outbreak of plague among First Nations were also dismissed out of hand. Will this claim prove to be accurate? For fifty years the Canadian government has sat on what it knew about Unit 731. This was not only ethically irresponsible, it betrayed solemn obligations that the government had undertaken in the postwar settlement of World War II in Asia.

~~~~~~~~

John Price is associate professor of Japanese history at the University of Victoria. He will be presenting his research at the conference “Preventing Crimes against Humanity: Lessons of the Asia-Pacific War” to be held at UBC and the University of Victoria, March 20-22.

DoD Acknowledges Civilian Exposure In SHAD Tests

By Matt Mientka
WASHINGTON-The Department of Defense (DoD) acknowledged for the first time last month that civilians were exposed to toxic chemicals and/or biological agents on American soil during a series of military tests in the 1960s and 1970s known as Project 112.

To assess defense capabilities against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the military is known to have conducted 46 of 134 planned tests over land and sea, as well as in Canada and Great Britain in cooperation with those countries. DoD's assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Dr. William Winkenwerder, told Congress last month that the military conducted land tests in Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Utah and Vieques, Puerto Rico.

"We do know that some civilians were exposed in tests that occurred in Hawaii, possibly in Alaska and possibly in Florida...and in Vieques, Puerto Rico," Dr. Winkenwerder said last month.

Yet, Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of DoD's deployment health directorate, told the Senate armed services committee last month that no records regarding adverse health effects in civilians have been found.

Spurred by congressional inquiry, DoD has been conducting its own investigation into the Project 112 tests, which were initially authorized by President Lyndon B. Johnson in January 1965. Shortly before Memorial Day this year, DoD released information about ten tests that were part of Project 112's Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD) component meant to test Navy vulnerabilities to chemical and biological weapons attack.

Though Canada and Great Britain acknowledged their participation in such tests years ago, American veterans of the SHAD tests have been lobbying the government in recent years for information about the tests to gain potential health benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Dr. Kilpatrick told U.S. MEDICINE earlier this year that the Pentagon has not yet released all health related information about the Project 112 tests because the records were long lost, archived in paper files at disparate locations across the country. In August, the Pentagon sent three investigators from the deployment health directorate to find records at the now defunct Deseret Test Center in Utah. Other records were archived separately at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, Fort Detrick in Maryland, and the National Archives here in Washington, according to various sources.

Yet, the Pentagon told VA by memo that it had stored all of the test records at one location, according to Richard Weidman, director of governemnt relations for Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). "They have the information...they just don't lose stuff like this," he said, adding that details of the tests, including the number of participants, were approved at the time by high level officials such as the White House's science advisor and either the secretary of defense or his deputy.

"I think that they were trying to prevent information coming out that would lead to any kind of liability for the various health effects, where either healthcare or compensation were due, and it's unconscionable," Wideman said. Regardless of Cold War justifications, he added, "You do not treat citizen soldiers as cattle, this is not the Soviet Union."

Likewise, Rep. Michael Thompson (D., Calif.) testified before the Senate last month that DoD and VA have known for 10 years about the Project 112 tests. "For 40 years, our government has sat on this information...[DoD and VA] knew 10 years ago that these military folks, these veterans, were exposed to this stuff, and there has been a 10-year period where nothing has been done," Rep. Thompson testified.

During this summer, the House and Senate each introduced similar pieces of legislation (H.R. 5060 and S. 2704) to compel the executive branch to expedite all Project 112/SHAD Freedom of Information Act requests, release all health-related information and notify veterans that were involved.

Earlier this year, a DoD spokesman told U.S. MEDICINE that the Pentagon's investigation into Project 112 would take time, given that DoD must first find and then screen the information for sensitive material. The spokesman also said that although DoD officials had gleaned valuable information about chemical and biological properties in the tests, other information, including personnel rosters, were not immediately at hand.

Likewise, VA deputy undersecretary for health Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin told the House last month, in written testimony, that VA had not learned about Project 112 until 1997 when a veteran filed a claim for service-connected disabilities he believed were related to SHAD tests.

DoD Releases New Information On 27 Tests
Dr. Winkenwerder said last month that 62 of the 134 planned Project 112 tests were cancelled but 46 were conducted, of which DoD has definitive knowledge of 37 tests. New information released by DoD last month described various test scenarios in which aircraft sprayed ships with chemicals, biological agents and simulants to test weapons capabilities against Navy ships that were either operating under normal conditions or expecting attack.

In tests such as Autumn Gold, rhesus monkeys were placed on the exterior of ships as test subjects while military personnel hunkered down inside. According to some veterans, however, the filters on the ships-in this case tugboats-were not as effective as modern filters and while leakage occurred, greater health harm was done when the military decontaminated the ships with chemicals that have since been found to be carcinogenic.

Weidman told U.S. MEDICINE last month that beta-proprolactone was one such chemical used in the Project 112 tests that has since proved to be extremely toxic and even lethal. Also, acute exposure to beta proprolactone via inhalation, or ingestion, may cause irritation to the skin, eyes, mouth, esophagus, GI tract and respiratory tract, and may cause liver and kidney damage as well as convulsions.

The land-based tests, a series of tests involving artillery shells filled with VX and Sarin gas occurred in Alaska between 1963 and 1965, among 11 other tests in that state. One similar land-based test occurred in Florida, Maryland and Puerto Rico while three tests each occurred in Hawaii and Utah. Additionally, one test was conducted in Canada and a joint test was conducted in Canada and Great Britain during that period.

According to DoD press releases, various Project 112 tests employed the chemicals Sarin (GB), Soman (GD), Tabun (GA), VX, Ester of benzillic acid (BZ), CS Riot Control agent; and the biological agents Coxiella burnetii (which causes Q fever in humans), Francisella tularensis (UL, TT, ZZ), Puccinia graminis var. tritici, and Staphylococcal enterotoxin Type B (PG2).

Veterans Testify
In addition to testimony from Dr. Winkenwerder last month, the Senate armed services committee heard from three veterans of the SHAD tests that allege the military deliberately exposed servicemembers to toxic chemicals and live biological agents. The veterans rejected DoD's claims that servicemembers had participated as test conductors rather than subjects.

DoD officials maintain that servicemembers participated as test conductors and were outfitted with protective clothing, which, they assert, was not as effective as similar gear today. Yet, Lt. Cdr. Jack Alderson, USN (ret.), told U.S. MEDICINE earlier this year that personnel aboard ships that were sprayed were not informed of the tests and, at best, received cotton coveralls that were not the day's standard for chemical/biological protective gear.

Robert Bates, a retired Navy seaman who participated in two test regimens, told the committee that he is more fortunate than are fellow SHAD veterans because his service-connected ear disability qualifies him to receive at least some VA treatment. According to Bates, DoD notified him last October that he had participated in SHAD's Autumn Gold tests and VA later informed him that he had also participated in the Eager Belle, Phase II tests while aboard the USS NAVARRO (APA-215), which was one of four ships subjected to tests in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii in February, March and June of 1963.

According to DoD, the military test conductors in Eager Belle, Phase II sprayed the ships with Bacillus globigii-a Biosafety Level 1 bacterium-on nine occasions during that period and, according to VA, Bates was aboard his ship during eight of those sprayings. Though USS NAVARRO crewmembers were not informed of the tests at the time, Bates told the committee that he had encountered a person wearing a full chemical/biological suit-not just cotton coveralls-while he was on watch one night during that time period in 1963.

In addition to Bacillus globigii, Bates was exposed to VX nerve gas during the Autumn Gold tests, he testified. Bates' medical records indicate that he was treated for pneumonia shortly after Eager Belle, Phase II tests, he said. Recently, VA declined to provide treatment for heart problems Bates alleges resulted from long-term health consequences of the tests, though VA physicians still cannot explain why he suffers from shortness of breath, he said.

Likewise, Alderson testified before the committee that he had participated as a test conductor in the Autumn Gold tests, commanding five Light Army tugboats that were brought out to sea for the tests. Alderson said he is lobbying for the release of health-related SHAD information because many veterans have complained of respiratory problems and cancers, which they believe are related to the tests. Without that information, veterans' "present attending physicians would not know what to look for or what to expect," said Alderson.

Hearings A Starting Point, Veterans Say
The hearings of last month represent a starting point, according to Weidman and veterans who testified last month. "I suspect this will be the first of a series of inquiries," said Rep. Lane Evans (D., Ill.), ranking member of the House VA Committee, adding that he believes DoD must take bigger steps to improve its medical record keeping.

Last month, DoD officials assured Congressmen that they intend to complete their investigation into Project 112 by the spring of 2003.

Likewise, VA told congress it intends to sign a $3 million contract with the Institute of Medicine to investigate the effects of Project 112 test exposures on veterans. "VA is committed to helping the veterans of project SHAD, Project 112 and all veterans who believe their military service has left them with medical problems," VA secretary Anthony J. Principi said last month.

VA officials said last month that they had notified approximately 1,400 veterans about their potential exposures and that 55 veterans have thus far applied to VA for benefits stemming from SHAD tests.

According to DoD, however, approximately 5,000 veterans may have participated in the Project 112 tests and information about civilian exposures is minimal.

~~~~~~~

FOR A CURRENT LIST OF DECLASSIFIED MATERIAL, PLEASE SEE:

http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/current_i ... _8_2.shtml

THANK YOU,

J.B. Stone, North American Human Test Rat