Authors: Carol Rutz
Tags: #Law, #Constitutional Law, #Human Rights, #Politics & Social Sciences, #Politics & Government, #Specific Topics, #Intelligence & Espionage
A Nation Betrayed: Secret Cold War Experiments Performed on Our Children and Other Innocent People (30 page)
• Full-body exposure to nitrogen or sulfur mustard or exposure to Lewisite and the subsequent development of a chronic form of laryngitis, bronchitis, emphysema, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease;
• Full-body exposure to nitrogen mustard with the subsequent development of acute non-lymphocytic leukemia.
Service-connection is not allowed if the claimed condition is due to the veteran’s own willful misconduct or if there is affirmative evidence that establishes some other non-service-related condition or event as the cause of the claimed disability.
Veterans who were exposed to significant amounts of mustard gas and have health problems that may be compensable or their survivors may contact the nearest VA regional office at 1-800-827-1000 for more information about benefits.
Veterans currently seeking VA health care receive medically indicated diagnostic and treatment services without any need to document mustard gas exposures. The VA has announced that for fiscal year 1999, it is planning to provide virtually all needed medical services for any veteran who comes to VA for care. In any future year in which appropriations are insufficient to meet projected demand, VA will use a priority system that provides a special category for those requiring treatment for illnesses specifically related to environmental exposures (although some veterans may qualify for an even higher eligibility category based on their service-connected status or other factors). Further, if the veteran can document exposure to receive care under the special enrollment Category 6, co-payments are avoided. More information about VA health-care enrollment is available toll-free at 1-877-222-VETS, at the veteran’s nearest VA medical center, or at http://www.va.gov/pubaff/enroll.htm on the Internet.
Sea Dumping of Chemical Weapons
Following the occupation of Germany and Japan, the Allies initiated a sea dumping and weapons disposal program to eliminate the large stockpiles of captured chemical agents. Operation Davy Jones Locker involved sinking ships that contained German weapons in the North Sea, however not all the German weapons were destroyed. Between 1945 and 1947, over 40,000 of the 250-kg tabun bombs, over 21,000 mustard bombs of various sizes, over 2,700 nitrogen mustard rockets, and about 750 tabun artillery shells of various sizes were shipped to the United States. In addition to disposing of the enemy stockpiles, the United States also dumped the U.S. Lewisite stockpile into the sea during Operation Geranium in 1948.
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The disposal at sea of surplus and leaking chemical munitions and radiological wastes generated environmental concerns about its effects on marine life, that eventually brought sea dumping to a halt but not before 1968. Operation Cut Holes and Sink ‘Em (CHASE), an ongoing program for disposing of conventional ammunition began accepting chemical weapons in 1967. That year, CHASE 8 disposed of mustard agent in ton containers, and M55 sarin rockets. In June 1968, CHASE 11 disposed of sarin and VX in ton containers, along with additional M55 sarin and VX rockets. In August 1968, CHASE 12 disposed of mustard agent in ton
containers. Are we really mystified by the effects our contaminated oceans have had on the sea and plant life?
Photograph: Chemical and Biological Defense Command Historical Research and Response Team, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md
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Production Begins
In 1950, the Chemical Corps began construction of the first full-scale sarin production complex based on pilot plant work accomplished at the Army Chemical Center, which had formerly been called Edgewood Arsenal.
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In 1951, the corps fully standardized sarin and by 1953 was producing the agent. After only four years of production the plants stopped manufacturing, since the stockpile requirements for the agent had been met. One serious accident that was reported took place on July 8, 1969. The army announced that 23 U.S. soldiers and one U.S. civilian had been exposed to sarin on Okinawa. The soldiers were cleaning sarin-filled bombs preparatory to repainting them when the accident occurred.
Part of the reason for the shut down of the sarin plant was the development of a new nerve agent. Chemists at Imperial Chemicals, Ltd. in the United Kingdom, while searching for new insecticides came across compounds that were extremely toxic to humans. The British shared the discovery with the United States in 1953. The Chemical Corps examined the new compounds, and determined that a new series of nerve agents had been discovered that were more persistent and much more toxic than the G-series agents. This new series was designated the V-series agents in 1955, because they were “venomous” in nature. These agents would enter the body through the skin, thereby bypassing the protective mask. They were 1,000-fold more toxic than sarin when applied to the skin, and 2- to 3-fold more toxic when inhaled. A drop the size of a pinhead on bare skin could cause death within 15 minutes.
The Chemical Corps gave top priority to the investigation of these compounds. Of the compounds investigated, VX was selected in 1957 for pilot plant development and dissemination studies. It was standardized in December 1957. The annual report for that year concluded: “The reign of mustard gas, which has been called the King of Battle gases since it was first used in July 1917, will probably come to an end.”
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In 1959, Food Machinery and Chemical Company, the low bidder, got the contract and construction was planned for 1960. Shortly after the approval, the Chemical Corps supplemented the contract to provide for a VX weapon-filling plant.
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On March 17, 1968 approximately 6,400 sheep died following the intentional release of a deadly nerve gas from a plane in the Skull Valley
area adjacent to Dugway Proving Grounds. According to a veterinarian who evaluated the sick and dying sheep, there was little doubt that the sheep had been poisoned
with nerve
gas.
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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 was identified when the poisoned sheep were autopsied, which made it clear that the deaths were not caused by pesticides.
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Eventually, the Department of Defense reimbursed the ranchers for their animals.
The Chemical Corps’s concern with the effects of nerve and other chemical agents on soldiers led to extensive studies to determine the dangers of exposure and the proper kinds of treatment. Between 1955 and 1975, the US Army enrolled 6720 soldiers in an experimental exposure program of chemical warfare and other agents at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. Two hundred fifty four chemicals were administered in an experimental setting.
In a three-year study beginning in 1965, 70 prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia were subjected to tests of dioxin, the highly toxic chemical contaminant in Agent Orange. Lesions that the men developed were not treated and remained for up to seven months. None of the subjects was informed that they would later be studied for the development of cancer. This was the second such experiment that Dow Chemical undertook on “volunteers” who did not receive the information, which the world proclaimed was necessary for “informed consent” at Nuremberg.
On 11 July 1969, the army revealed that it was conducting open-air testing with nerve agents at Edgewood Arsenal and at Fort McClellan during training events. The army also revealed that they had conducted nerve agent testing in Hawaii between 1966 and 1967.
The Incapacitant Program
During the 1950s, the Chemical Corps became interested in developing chemical weapons that incapacitated rather than killed its targets. Twelve contractors were awarded a total of 25 contracts for studies or experiments involving morphine, demerol, seconal, scopolamine, chlorpromazine, and secobarbital. Mental Incapacitant studies included: LSD, mescaline, atropine, psilocybin, BZ (benzilate) and glycolate compounds.
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New York State Psychiatric Institute was awarded three separate contracts for the study of LSD and mescaline. In 1951 NYSPI tested six derivatives, while the corps tested 35 derivatives. The results of the investigation indicated that mescaline and its derivatives would not be practical as agents, because the doses needed to bring about the mental confusion were too large.
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What this report does not say is that less than a month after New York State Psychiatric received the drugs and did tests on mice, they started injecting patients. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, Harold Blauer died from these tests. Alan Scheflin says that the Army report on Blauer’s death states that Blauer was not asked for a written consent and that “it is doubtful that such a document exists.”
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Scheflin fills in the pattern of deception by explaining that the Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York conferred with the Army representatives and agreed that their role should be concealed from Mrs. Blauer. In fact, they continued these tests at NYSPI through 1957 to a whopping $140,000. In late 1953 the investigators of that Institute formed a private corporation called “The Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, Inc.,” and were awarded two additional contracts to conduct studies with LSD and mescaline type drugs on psychiatric patients. The Inspector General could not even find details of these contracts.
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Additional Contracts:
• The University of Washington used psychochemical drugs on at least 19 male and female medical students.
• The University of Maryland studied the effects of atropine substitutes and other chemical warfare agents under five contracts using Edgewood Arsenal military volunteers and Maryland Psychiatric patients, and other area hospital patients.
• North American Aviation used BZ on 19 company employees.
• Indiana University studied the effects of atropine and atropine substitutes using seven volunteers.
• University of Pennsylvania was awarded six separate contracts. Approximately 40 people were tested with morphine and demerol
drugs,
and 10 people received scopolamine, atropine, and morphine. Two of these contracts in the mid-to-late 1960’s, used 320 inmates from Holmesburg Prison. They were tested with 16 different chemical agents including, ditan, atropine, scopolamine, and various experimental glycolate agents. Glycolates can cause interference with muscles and the central nervous system, delirium, physical incoordination, blurred vision, inhibition of sweating and salivation, rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, increased body temperature, vomiting, prostration and stupor or coma.
• The same medical investigators who conducted research at Holmesburg Prison under University of Pennsylvania contracts formed the Ivy Research Laboratories, Inc. They received one contract in 1968 and the other in 1970, to continue work at Holmesburg Prison with chemical agents with 94 inmates. They had choking agents, nerve agents, blood agents, blister agents, vomiting agents, incapacitating agents and toxins used on them.
• Secret army-sponsored research, in which hallucinogens were administered to healthy subjects without their knowledge or consent, was carried out at Boston Psychiatric Hospital between 1952 and 1954.
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In reflecting, “not with pride,” on his participation in this experiment, an investigator explained it as follows: “It wasn’t that we were Nazis and said if we ask for consent we lose our subjects, it was just that we were so ethically insensitive that it never occurred to us that you ought to level with people that they were in an experiment.
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• American Institute for Research, Silver Springs, Maryland was awarded a contract in 1964 to conduct psychoactive chemical
compound experiments on military volunteers.
