Millions Of British Citizens used in Secret BioWarFare Tests - (Observer)

http://www.rense.com/general24/secret.htm



Millions Of British Citizens
Used In Secret BioWarefare Tests
By Antony Barnett
Public Affairs Editor
The Observer - London
4-26-2


The Ministry of Defence turned large parts of the country into a
giant laboratory to conduct a series of secret germ warfare tests on the
public.

A government report just released provides for the first time a
comprehensive official history of Britain's biological weapons trials
between 1940 and 1979.

Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous
chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the
public being told.

While details of some secret trials have emerged in recent years,
the 60-page report reveals new information about more than 100 covert
experiments.

The report reveals that military personnel were briefed to tell any
'inquisitive inquirer' the trials were part of research projects into
weather and air pollution.

The tests, carried out by government scientists at Porton Down, were
designed to help the MoD assess Britain's vulnerability if the Russians were
to have released clouds of deadly germs over the country.

In most cases, the trials did not use biological weapons but
alternatives which scientists believed would mimic germ warfare and which
the MoD claimed were harmless. But families in certain areas of the country
who have children with birth defects are demanding a public inquiry.

One chapter of the report, 'The Fluorescent Particle Trials',
reveals how between 1955 and 1963 planes flew from north-east England to the
tip of Cornwall along the south and west coasts, dropping huge amounts of
zinc cadmium sulphide on the population. The chemical drifted miles inland,
its fluorescence allowing the spread to be monitored. In another trial using
zinc cadmium sulphide, a generator was towed along a road near Frome in
Somerset where it spewed the chemical for an hour.

While the Government has insisted the chemical is safe, cadmium is
recognised as a cause of lung cancer and during the Second World War was
considered by the Allies as a chemical weapon.

In another chapter, 'Large Area Coverage Trials', the MoD describes
how between 1961 and 1968 more than a million people along the south coast
of England, from Torquay to the New Forest, were exposed to bacteria
including e.coli and bacillus globigii , which mimics anthrax. These
releases came from a military ship, the Icewhale, anchored off the Dorset
coast, which sprayed the micro-organisms in a five to 10-mile radius.


The report also reveals details of the DICE trials in south Dorset
between 1971 and 1975. These involved US and UK military scientists spraying
into the air massive quantities of serratia marcescens bacteria, with an
anthrax simulant and phenol.

Similar bacteria were released in 'The Sabotage Trials' between 1952
and 1964. These were tests to determine the vulnerability of large
government buildings and public transport to attack. In 1956 bacteria were
released on the London Underground at lunchtime along the Northern Line
between Colliers Wood and Tooting Broadway. The results show that the
organism dispersed about 10 miles. Similar tests were conducted in tunnels
running under government buildings in Whitehall.

Experiments conducted between 1964 and 1973 involved attaching germs
to the threads of spiders' webs in boxes to test how the germs would survive
in different environments. These tests were carried out in a dozen locations
across the country, including London's West End, Southampton and Swindon.
The report also gives details of more than a dozen smaller field trials
between 1968 and 1977.

In recent years, the MoD has commissioned two scientists to review
the safety of these tests. Both reported that there was no risk to public
health, although one suggested the elderly or people suffering >from
breathing illnesses may have been seriously harmed if they inhaled
sufficient quantities of micro-organisms.

However, some families in areas which bore the brunt of the secret
tests are convinced the experiments have led to their children suffering
birth defects, physical handicaps and learning difficulties.

David Orman, an army officer from Bournemouth, is demanding a public
inquiry. His wife, Janette, was born in East Lulworth in Dorset, close to
where many of the trials took place. She had a miscarriage, then gave birth
to a son with cerebral palsy. Janette's three sisters, also born in the
village while the tests were being carried out, have also given birth to
children with unexplained problems, as have a number of their neighbours.

The local health authority has denied there is a cluster, but Orman
believes otherwise. He said: 'I am convinced something terrible has
happened. The village was a close-knit community and to have so many birth
defects over such a short space of time has to be more than coincidence.'


Successive governments have tried to keep details of the germ
warfare tests secret. While reports of a number of the trials have emerged
over the years through the Public Records Office, this latest MoD document -
which was released to Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker - gives the fullest
official version of the biological warfare trials yet.

Baker said: 'I welcome the fact that the Government has finally
released this information, but question why it has taken so long. It is
unacceptable that the public were treated as guinea pigs without their
knowledge, and I want to be sure that the Ministry of Defence's claims that
these chemicals and bacteria used were safe is true.'

The MoD report traces the history of the UK's research into germ
warfare since the Second World War when Porton Down produced five million
cattle cakes filled with deadly anthrax spores which would have been dropped
in Germany to kill their livestock. It also gives details of the infamous
anthrax experiments on Gruinard on the Scottish coast which left the island
so contaminated it could not be inhabited until the late 1980s.


The report also confirms the use of anthrax and other deadly germs
on tests aboard ships in the Caribbean and off the Scottish coast during the
1950s. The document states: 'Tacit approval for simulant trials where the
public might be exposed was strongly influenced by defence security
considerations aimed obviously at restricting public knowledge. An important
corollary to this was the need to avoid public alarm and disquiet about the
vulnerability of the civil population to BW [biological warfare] attack.'

Sue Ellison, spokeswoman for Porton Down, said: 'Independent reports
by eminent scientists have shown there was no danger to public health >from
these releases which were carried out to protect the public.

'The results from these trials_ will save lives, should the country
or our forces face an attack by chemical and biological weapons.'

Asked whether such tests are still being carried out, she said: 'It
is not our policy to discuss ongoing research.'

antony.barnett@observer.co.uk





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