"These were active-duty U.S. service members being used as human guinea pigs," Hancock said. [1] The experiments were abruptly terminated by the Army in late 1975 amidst an atmosphere of scandal and recrimination as lawmakers accused researchers of questionable ethics. All Rights Reserved. However, much of that flash comes from recordings made during the actual experiments. The first story in this report focused on race-based experiments done as part of the military's chemical warfare program: Cavell, now 88 years old, says the officer threatened him and the other test subjects: If they told anyone about their knowledge or participation in the experiments, they would receive a dishonorable discharge and be sent to military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "They put the fear of God in just a bunch of young kids," he says. The National Academy of Sciences, which oversees the IOM, sent a questionnaire to all of the former volunteers that could be located, approximately 60% of the total. These experiments with mustard gas were conducted by the Army and Navy at more than a dozen locations. APG Transition: 1980s-1990s [10], According to a DOD FAQ, the Edgewood Arsenal experiments involved the following "rough breakout of volunteer hours against various experimental categories":[11]. She says they didn't know that he was eligible for disability benefits when he died of a heart attack in 1995. We closely follow guidance from the World Wide Web Consortium. A Warner Bros. Declassified military films show soldiers being given drugs and then being monitored to see their impacts. The letter granting him benefits made no mention of Edgewood. Copyright 2023 Military.com. Daughter can't have kids due to this place; not to mention the other members of the family ailments. Since I grew up in close proximity to Edgewood with obvious chemical testing, how much can I have transferred birth defects to him? I was a MRVP at Edgewood Arsenal Chemical in 1964/1965. Those regulations have kept veterans like Harry Bollinger, 88, from receiving benefits. If I go to a locked door, I panic sometimes to try to get out.". On July 24, 2013, United States District Court Judge Claudia Wilken issued an order granting in part and denying in part plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and granting in part and denying in part defendants' motion for summary judgment. After a stint at a defense company in Tennessee, Carl Gepp got a job in 1965 as an engineer working on the Honest John missile back at the Edgewood Arsenal. Nine workers, of whom eight were African-American, were killed in the . In the suit, Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. "U.S. Navy, Guinea Pig. Youre going to do it. Fort Hoyle was established on October 7, 1922, and was created from a portion of the Edgewood Arsenal. The claims process has also been complicated by Department of Defense claims that it cannot find records to substantiate most of the veterans participation in the tests, causing the VA to summarily deny those claims, the lawsuit alleges. There were instances of chemical damages to the car. Veterans may file a claim for disability compensation for health problems they believe are related to exposures during Edgewood/Aberdeen chemical tests. [14], A significant omission from the Course summary above is the number of subjects on which BZ and related compounds were tested. Officials at the Pentagon tell NPR it's likely that some of the records about military mustard gas experiments were never recovered. Erspamer said he sees a connection between Josephs Parkinsons disease and the drugs he received at Edgewood. One film showed soldiers being injected with BZ, which in high doses can lead to hallucinations and confusion. From this point on, APG was the common identifier for both areas. A small portion of these studies were directed at psychochemical warfare and grouped under the prosaic title of the "Medical Research Volunteer Program" (19561975). "They didn't know they were signing up to get mystery chemicals injected into their bodies," Hancock said. Copyrights 2002-2022 YourLawyer.com. These studies included a secret human subjects component at least as early as 1948, when "psychological reactions" were documented in Edgewood technicians. Cavell and 11 other volunteers were locked inside a gas chamber with mustard gas piping inside. Building 509 at Edgewood Arsenal in Harford County, Maryland was a production facility for the assembly of phosphorus igniter assemblies for incendiary bombs, employing a female staff of about 135 assemblers. My phone calls were always returned quickly and all of my questions were answered in a thorough manner. [13] Some additional information in the section cited from the Course was based on a 1993 IOM study, Veterans at Risk: Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite. Medications cost $2,000 a month, which he was paying for out of pocket. It just did not look like a military base, more like a hospital, recalled Josephs, a Pittsburgh native. 1942-1945: U.S. Navy initiated poisonous Mustard Gas and Lewisite (derivative of arsenic) experiments to test protective clothing and anti-blister ointments at the Naval Research Laboratory and at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal. Ariel Zambelich/NPR. And instances when she told me when the office people had to stay indoors instill all cleared. "For the actual test Private Zadrovney received a high dose of the incapacitating agent," the film's narrator said. The study could not rule out long-term health effects related to exposure to the nerve agents. While the soldiers were given the option to decline the drug testing, there were innuendos of bad punishments if they did not participate, the former soldier said, according to CNN. Bollinger still has chronic breathing problems and breaks out in eczema in places where he was burned as a young Navy recruit: "Around my privates and under my arms and face and everywhere else," he says. They want to use young men as guinea pigs and throw them away., The Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs declined face-to-face interviews with CNN, citing pending litigation. The prior finding held that the Army has an ongoing duty to seek out and provide "notice" to former test participants of any new information that could potentially affect their health. More than 20 years later, the VA has attempted to contact fewer than a quarter of the thousands it said it would. Others were locked in gas chambers, like Cavell. Some gave up out of frustration. Read the confidential (now unclassified) Army document uncovering LSD tests on volunteers (PDF). "That's going to be on my tombstone," Bollinger says. The committee's understanding is that additional, and potentially relevant, material on SHAD tests exists and remains classified. The plaintiffs collectively referred to themselves as the "Test Vets". A group of them, led by Nat Schnurman, went public with their stories in 1990. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. Josephs applied for veterans benefits based on chemical exposure at Edgewood. They based that conclusion on the same information that had been sitting in his VA file for decades. It concluded that "Whether the subjects at Edgewood incurred these changes [depression, cognitive deficits, tendency to suicide] and to what extent they might now show these effects are not known". An "Independent Study Course" for continuing medical education produced by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Health Effects from Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Weapons (October 2003),[12] presents the following summary of the Edgewood Arsenal experiments: Renewed interest led to renewed human testing by the Department of Defense (DoD), although ultimately on a much smaller scale. With regard specifically to BZ and related compounds, the IOM study concluded that "available data suggest that long-term toxic effects and/or delayed sequellae are unlikely". 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NPR Investigations Research Librarian Barbara Van Woerkom contributed reporting and research to this investigation. Long-term psychological effects are possible from the trauma associated with being a human test subject. However, a good history and physical examination can provide valuable information and help determine a Veterans risk of developing health problems related to the exposure. At the end of the second hour, the officer ordered Cavell back to his barracks and to continue wearing his gas-saturated uniform. These irritant chemicals were selected for human testing following preliminary animal studies. Please be sure to specify the particular web page or function at issue, and provide us with any other information you may think will help us locate the area. And yet Flohr insists the VA still needs proof in order to grant claims. "This should have been ancient history by now," he told NPR. For 20. Updated The Army colonel had no regrets about the experiments and believed he was acting in the best interests of the nation as it faced a Cold War threat. Served as a volunteer for medical research in a U.S. Army chemical or biological substance testing program from 1942 to 1975. Finally, the command and control problems which were apparent in the CIA's programs are paralleled by a lack of clear authorization and supervision in the Army's programs.(S. "The word got around they were looking for volunteers for testing," Paul said. Vets feel abandoned after secret drug experiments, Former sergeant seeks compensation for LSD testing at Edgewood Arsenal, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edgewood_Arsenal_human_experiments&oldid=1124810855, Development evaluation and test procedures, Effects of drugs and environmental stress on human physiological mechanisms, Human factors tests (ability to follow instructions), Other (visual studies, sleep deprivation, etc. Paul was serving at Fort Bliss in Texas in 1968, when he volunteered for what he thought would be an easy assignment. He said, You volunteered for this. A failure to secure informed consent and other widespread failures to follow the precepts of U.S. and international law regarding the use of human subjects, including the 1953 Wilson Directive and the Nuremberg Code. . He filed a federal lawsuit for compensation in 1979, but was unsuccessful because of a legal doctrine that protects the military from being sued for service-related injuries. Goss was a Florida congressman when he was contacted by a group of constituents who were used as test subjects and spoke out on their behalf. From Edgewood, Josephs said he went to an Army installation in Georgia, where he experienced tremors so severe, he had to be admitted to the base hospital and given muscle relaxers. For example, in 1970, DEFENDANTS provided Congress with an alphabetical list showing that they had tested 145 drugs during Projects Bluebird, Artichoke, Case4:09-cv-00037-CW Document180 Filed11/18/10 Page6 of 76 Nashville veteran Dennis Paul, 79, discussed his experience in the program with NewsChannel 5 Investigates, saying he it impacted him long after he left the Army. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. None of the requested materials were cleared for public release as of this writing (2016).[19]. He filed claims for several illnesses on the VA's list of those linked to mustard gas, including skin cancer and chronic breathing problems. "It just did not look like a military base, more. See Vietnam Veterans II, 811 F.3d at 1076-78 (discussing the Army's failure in its ongoing "duty to warn" Edgewood Arsenal volunteers under AR 70-25), 1080-81 (discussing the Army's failure in its "duty of care" to Edge-wood Arsenal volunteers under AR 70-25); see also Vi-etnam Veterans I, 2013 WL 6092031, at *2 (explaining . A third type of test exposed troops to gas outdoors in simulated combat settings. The "Independent Study Course" cites mainly a three-volume study by the Institute of Medicine (19821985) for its data and conclusions, Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Chemical Agents. Vol. Everyone I have dealt with at your firm has been very professional and courteous. Around 7,000 US military personnel and 1,000 civilians were test subjects over almost three decades. including tests designed to look for racial difference. Elimination of the chemicals held here was put on an accelerated schedule after the September 11, 2001, attacks, and all chemical weapons were destroyed by February 2006. NPR interviewed more than 40 living test subjects and family members, and they describe an unending cycle of appeals and denials as they struggled to get government benefits for mustard gas exposure. General William M. Creasy, former chief chemical officer, U.S. Army, testified to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1959 that "provided sufficient emphasis is put behind it, I think the future lies in the psychochemicals. The action is related to a 2009 lawsuit filed by VVA, an Army spokesperson confirmed to Army Times. But Goss says that excuse is at the core of all that is dysfunctional in Washington bureaucracies. The Edgewood Arsenal human experiments took place from approximately 1948 to 1975 at the Medical Research Laboratorieswhich is now known as the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD)at the Edgewood Area, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Many official government reports and civilian lawsuits followed in the wake of the controversy. The agents tested included chemical warfare agents and other related agents (inactive substances or placebos such as saline were used): There are no tests today that can confirm exposure to agents from decades ago. Two autobiographical books from psychiatrists conducting human experiments at Edgewood have been self-published: Journalist Linda Hunt, citing records from the. However, the declaration was an effective deterrent, and the Axis powers did not use . hide caption. Some of the volunteers exhibited symptoms at the time of exposure to these agents but long-term follow-up was not planned as part of the DoD studies. 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