Vets press for info on 1960s chemical tests
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2008/06/12/national/w001556D31.DTL
Jack Alderson was ordered never to talk about the secret weapons tests he helped
conduct in the Pacific during the 1960s. He kept quiet for decades.
Sparse attendance at a 1993 reunion prompted Alderson, a retired Navy Reserve
lieutenant commander, to speak out. He learned that more than half of the 500
or so crew members who took part in the tests were either dead or suffering from
cancer, respiratory problems or other ailments. Alderson wondered whether
his own skin cancers, allergies and chronic fatigue were linked to those tests
or were simply the result of aging.
"I was told by my bosses and the docs and so forth that if you follow these
routines ... you're going to be OK," Alderson, 74, said in an interview. "We did
exactly as told. And we're finding out now that we're sick."
Alderson and other witnesses were to testify Thursday before a House Veterans
Affairs panel considering legislation that would require more Pentagon
disclosure about the Cold War-era germ and chemical weapons testing and extend
benefits to veterans who participated in them. A similar bill is scheduled for
a vote in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee later this month.
Lawmakers say the legislation is needed because the Pentagon has not
acknowledged a link between the tests and health problems, which has made it
difficult
for veterans to get health coverage. Pentagon officials don't rule out a health
link but say it's tough to prove.
"We cannot say that this exposure 40 years ago had absolutely no health effect,"
said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, the Pentagon's deputy director for force health
protection and readiness. "I don't think any physician would risk saying that.
Because how do you prove that that's the case?"
A similar debate took place around Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by
U.S. forces in Vietnam that was linked to cancer and other ailments in those
exposed to it. At Congress' insistence in the late 1980s, the government
extended benefits to veterans and their children suffering from Agent
Orange-related
diseases.
The bill under consideration Thursday, by Reps. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., and
Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., is patterned after the Agent Orange legislation.
In testimony prepared for the hearing, obtained in advance by The Associated
Press, Bradley Mayes, the Veterans Affairs Department's director of compensation
and pensions, calls the legislation unnecessary, "due to the lack of credible
scientific and medical evidence that adequately demonstrates any statistically
significant correlation" between the tests and participants' diseases.
Last year, the Institute of Medicine, which advises the government on medical
and health matters, found no specific health effects as a result of Project
SHAD — Shipboard Hazard and Defense. Alderson, Thompson and others argue that
the report was shoddily done and left out key information.
"It started out being a secret project and turned into being a CYA type of
thing, you know, cover your rear end. And an embarrassment," Thompson said of
the
tests and their aftermath.
Action from Congress would be a relief to Alderson, who lives modestly in
Ferndale, Calif., among the redwoods north of San Francisco. His home is
decorated
with stacks of documents about his days in charge of a fleet of five light
tugboats that were sprayed with biological agents and cleaned afterward with
solvents, some of which now are considered carcinogenic.
During the tests, conducted amid Cold War concerns about the Soviet Union's
weapons capabilities, the military tested germs such as bacteria that could
cause
tularemia and Q fever, serious diseases more commonly found in animals. Also
used were nonlethal simulated agents, including E. coli, now known to pose
health dangers.
Test participants were given experimental vaccines but weren't told of any
risks, only that the shots were a protective measure, Alderson said. Project
SHAD
also involved spraying service members aboard large Navy ships.
Kilpatrick acknowledges that some participants weren't fully informed about the
project they were part of but says safety precautions taken then were
appropriate for the time.
Alderson said he has pressed the Pentagon for answers about the secret tests
because he feels he owes that to the crews he commanded.
In 1995, Alderson got a copy of a letter that the Navy's medicine and surgery
bureau sent to his then-congressman, Rep. Frank Riggs, stating they had no
records of Project SHAD. Six years later, after continued questioning from Riggs
and Thompson, the Pentagon began to publicly release details on the
existence of Project SHAD and its umbrella program, Project 112, which involved
distribution of nonlethal bacteria and occasionally real chemical or
biological weapons.
The Defense Department now says 6,440 service members took part in 50 tests
under Project 112 between 1962 and 1973, including open-air tests above a
half-dozen U.S. states.
Defense officials essentially closed the books on Project 112 in 2003. The
Government Accountability Office issued two reports that criticized the Pentagon
for ending its investigation.
An untold number of veterans and civilians could remain unaware of their
potential exposure, the GAO said. The Pentagon disputes the GAO's claims.