The United States and the United Kingdom ended outdoor biological warfare testing in populated areas nearly half a century ago. Yet, the conduct, health effects, and propriety of those tests remain controversial. The varied views reflect the limits of currently available test information and evolving societal values on research involving human subjects. Western political culture has changed since the early days of the American and British testing programs. People have become less reluctant to question authority, and institutional review boards must now pre-approve research involving human subjects. Further, the heightened stringency of laboratory containment has accentuated the safety gap between a confined test space and one without physical boundaries. All this makes it less likely that masses of people would again be unwittingly subjected to secret open-air biological warfare tests.
The United States and the United Kingdom ended outdoor biological warfare testing in populated areas nearly half a century ago, but the conduct, health effects, and propriety of those tests remain controversial. People are now less reluctant to question authority, and institutional review boards must now pre-approve research involving human subjects. Further, the heightened stringency of laboratory containment has accentuated the safety gap between a confined test space and one without physical boundaries.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
CarterB, PearsonG.British biological warfare and biological defense, 1925-45. In: GeisslerE, MoonJEvC, eds. Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945. New York: Oxford University Press; 1999.
2.
CovertNM.Cutting Edge: A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland, 1943-1993. Fort Detrick, MD: Public Affairs Office, Headquarters, US Army Garrison, Fort Detrick, MD; 1993.
3.
HarrisSH.Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Cover Up. New York: Routledge; 1994.
4.
MillerJ, EngelbergS, BroadW. Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War. New York: Simon and Schuster; 2001.
5.
LeitenbergM, ZilinskasRA, KuhnJH. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2012.
RegisE.Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project. New York: Henry Holt; 1999.
11.
BalmerB.The UK biological weapons program. In: WheelisM, RószaL, DandoM, eds. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2006:47-83.
12.
UK Ministry of Defense. Operation Cauldron 1952, AC 12217, Scientific Report by the Microbiological Research Department, Porton, and Naval Report by the Naval Commander, April1953.
Norris KP. Concentration, Viability, and Immunological Properties of Airborne Bacteria Released from a Massive Line Source. UK Ministry of Defense, MRE Field Trial Report No. 3 (Trials conducted October 1963 to April 1964); 1966.
US Senate. Committee on Human Resources, Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research. Biological testing involving human subjects by the Department of Defense. March8 and May 23, 1977. https://archive.org/details/biologicaltestin00unit. Accessed July18, 2016.
19.
US Army Chemical Corps. Summary of Major Events and Problems for 1958. Historical Office Army Chemical Center, Maryland, annual reports, 1953–1962.
20.
ColeLA.The Eleventh Plague: The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare. New York: WH Freeman; 1997.
21.
Moon JEvC. The US biological weapons program. In: WheelisM, RószaL, DandoM, eds. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2006:9-46.
22.
ColeLA.Clouds of Secrecy: The Army's Germ Warfare Tests Over Populated Areas. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield; 1990.
23.
US Chemical Corps Biological Laboratories. Biological Warfare Trials at San Francisco, California, 20-27 September 1950. Special Report No. 142. Camp Detrick, Frederick, MD, January22, 1951.
24.
US Army Chemical Corps. Behavior of Aerosol Clouds Within Cities. Joint Quarterly Report No. 3, January-March1953.
25.
US Army Chemical Corps. Behavior of Aerosol Clouds Within Cities. Joint Quarterly Report No. 4, July-September1953.
26.
US Army Chemical Corps. Summary of Major Events and Problems for 1959. Historical Office Army Chemical Center, Maryland, annual reports, 1953-1962.
27.
GuilleminJ.Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism. New York: Columbia University Press; 2005.
28.
US Army Biological Laboratories. Miscellaneous Publication 7, Study US65SP. Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, July1965.
29.
US Army. A Study of the Vulnerability of Subway Passengers in New York City to Covert Action with Biological Agents. Miscellaneous Publication 25. Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, January1968.
30.
ColeLA.The Anthrax Letters: A Medical Detective Story. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2003.
31.
ColeLA, KahnLH, SandmanPM. Bioterrorism and the communication of uncertainty. In: ColeLA, ConnellND, eds. Local Planning for Terror and Disaster: From Bioterrorism to Earthquakes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell; 2012.
PageWF, YoungHA, CrawfordHM; Advisory Panel for the Study of Long-Term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD; Medical Follow-Up Agency; Board on Military and Veterans Health; Institute of Medicine. Long-Term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense). Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2007.
SchmidtU.Secret Science: A Century of Poison Warfare and Human Experiments. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 2015.
39.
MakhijaniA, SchwartzSI. Victims of the bomb. In: SchwartzSI, ed. Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press; 1998.
New York City Police Department and Brookhaven Lab to conduct airflow study in New York City streets and subways this summer [news release]. Brookhaven National Laboratories, April23, 2013. https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11532. Accessed July18, 2016.
MoonS, SridharD, PateMA, et al.Will Ebola change the game? Ten essential reforms before the next pandemic. The report of the Harvard-LSHTM Independent Panel on the Global Response to Ebola. Lancet, 2015; 3386(10009):2204-2221.
KurzCL, ChauvetS, AndrèsE, et al.Virulence factors of the human opportunistic pathogen Serratia marcescens identified by in vivo screening. EMBO J, 2003; 22(7):1451-1460.
