Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

As a victim of the chemical weapons tests, I belong to an international Bulletin Board  run by a group named Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)this was sent to my in box this morning. They keep the members updated on actions involving anything related to chemical or biological weapons.  http://www.sipri.org/  they are the International monitors of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Treaties.

By: JP Zanders


On: 09.07.06 06:44

 By Francis Elliott, Whitehall Editor


Published: 09 July 2006


http://news.independent.co.

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Servicemen were deliberately subjected to lethal doses of poison in secret tests at Porton Down, an official report will admit this week.

The Ministry of Defence is now braced for a flood of compensation claims from volunteers used in trials at its chemical weapons research centre.

The long-delayed "historical survey" of Porton Down finds that at least five sets of trials "may not have met the ethical standards required," The Independent on Sunday has learnt. They include one trial in which drops of a poison were placed on the skin of volunteers at a dosage level believed at the time to be fatal.

Another test saw six soldiers severely injured after their genitals were exposed to mustard gas to test prototype protective underwear.

The trial, in which an RAF serviceman, Ronald Maddison, died in agony after being given sarin, is also condemned in a list of cases in which scientists were acting "at the edge of their knowledge".

Ministers commissioned the report into Porton Down six years ago, under pressure from volunteers who were convinced that they had suffered long-term health damage.

 http://news.independent.co.

uk/...

I have written extensively about the American chemical weapons and drug tests, not as much about the 2300 men used at Fort Detrick between 1952 thru 1972 in the biological weapons tests, for one reason I have no personal knowledge of them as I do the Edgewood experiments since I am one of the 4022 survivors of that program.

Fort Detrick operation was called Operation White Coat, they used seventh day adventists who rather not claim Conscientious Objector Status became medics and then volunteered for the tests, thinking they were part of a science program, they just didn't really understand the full impact of it, many of the men still volunteered and went to Vietnam as medics, they could have used the option to finish their time at a stateside post or Europe, the reward for these men to volunteer was their choice of their next duty station when they finished their time in the project. So I have much admiration for the men who still chose to go to Nam.

Why does this or should this matter to voters in 2006? America learned about these type of tests in 1975, public pressure and Congress forced the government to halt the human experiments that violated the Nuremberg Codes of 1947

The President was Ford, the Chief of Staff of the White House was Dick Cheney and Sec of Defense was Rumsfeld.  This all was investigated by the Church Commission, Nelson Rockefeller, Vice President's commission, etc. President Ford signed an order in 1976 banning all, future military and CIA experiments on humans.

In 1993 the Congress again did another investigation into the WW2 era tests and the LSD tests of the Cold War project MKULTRA, the program I was used in. The VA and DOD promised Congress they would find all of these soldiers used in the experiments from WW2 and the Cold War LSD tests. Sec of Defense Cheney, and VA Sec Anthony Princippi told Congress.

Now here it is 2006, the VA and DOD still has not been able to "find" any of these veterans, why? We go to the VA and file claims and are ignored, our Congressman do  nothing, there is no accountability. They are keeping the information needed by these veterans and their families classified or "lost" until the Bush Administration leaves office in 2009? Why because of possible embarassment to these men, accountability for their approval of these tests in1974 and 1975 after taking us to war for Saddam using gas on the Kurds, when what they did was far worse, using gas and drugs on your own soldiers to me is a worse crime.

Help these men and their widows and children get the answers they need before 2009, vote for Democrats and for change so we can get some Democrats either in the House or Senate to hold hearing and force them to find us, I am sorry 30-60 years to wait to be "found" by your government is to long, esopecially when we aren't lost.

You can read more about the US experiments here http://outsidethebeltway.or

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