Congressman Mike Thompson paid a visit to the Observer*American office recently. Being new to this newspaper and to California, I did some reading about Representative Thompson before he arrived, so I would know more about him.
One of the items that caught my eye was the fact that the Congressman was instrumental in getting a full General Accounting Office investigation of the Department of Defense (DoD) for the chemical and biological testing that was secretly administered to armed forces members from 1962-1974. The testing took place under programs known as SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) and Project 112.
A Congressman who goes to bat for veterans automatically has a check mark on the plus side with me. Not only did Congressman Thompson help initiate the investigation, he also introduced legislation to make the findings public and to provide long term care to those who were affected. We should all appreciate what the Congressman did for our veterans.
How could employees working for an agency under the auspices of the DoD actually use members of the U.S. Armed Forces for guinea pigs? To me, it is incomprehensible.
I can remember my high school history studies concerning World War II. Germany used Jews and prisoners of other ethnicities for a variety of ghastly medical research. Their excuse was “the end justifies the means.”
I have always placed the Germans of the Hitler reign, who perpetrated one horrible atrocity after another, as some of the most evil people to ever inhabit the Earth. And, I have generally found most Americans agree with me. Unfortunately, there is a dark American history when it comes to using our own people like lab rats. A close inspection of our own government backed scientific programs illustrates that we have had some monsters on our side, too.
SHAD was implemented to “determine the vulnerability of U.S. warships to chemical and biological attacks.” The DoD, until forced to reveal the truth, said that animals, less than human, were used for the tests. Sadly, that was not the case. Nearly 6,000 military personnel and about 350 civilians have been identified as impacted by the secret tests.
SHAD and Project 112 really only scratch the surface when it comes to all of the secret chemical and biological tests administered to American soldiers and civilians. I suppose the idea was that the knowledge gained would be of benefit for future generations, once again, “the end justifies the means.”
The list of events in which American citizens” rights were violated during secret research studies is long. In 1940, 400 Chicago prisoners were infected with malaria to test experimental drugs against the disease. During the Nuremberg trials against Nazi war criminals, German scientists used the Chicago study and other American scientific studies in defense of their actions. It”s disturbing that the Nazis could use American horrors to defend their own monstrous activities.
The use of American soldiers to study the effects of atomic bombs on humans is now widely known. In addition, many civilians were impacted too, by wind patterns, which turned out not to be an error, but a built-in element of the research.
In the 1950s and ”60s, LSD experiments were performed on American soldiers. In Vietnam, our soldiers came in frequent contact with Agent Orange. In Desert Storm, after thousands of our soldiers became ill, it was finally revealed that it was due to chemical agents made and used by the U.S.
All of these travesties against Americans were planned and implemented by Americans. In most cases, it took years of investigating before the responsible government agency would confess to the wrong doing. For me, the fact that one event like this could happen in America is shocking. The fact that they just keep on occurring disturbs me to the core of my being.
Gary Dickson is publisher of the Observer*American. He may be reached at 263-5636, ext. 24, or e-mail at gdickson@record-bee.com.
