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UK Exposes Millions of Citizens to Biological & Chemical Warfare Tests

August 23, 2012 by admin in Politics with 1 Comment

Not only has the United Kingdom used many millions of its own citizens as guinea pigs in germ warfare, it may still be doing so!

by Antony Barnett

In a damning Guardian report, it has been confirmed that the United Kingdom—a nation that has most of its citizens convinced it’s a democracy—has been using its own citizens within its own boundaries as guinea pigs in biological and chemical warfare tests! The author, Antony Barnett, starts his article clearly:

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.

If questioned, the military was instructed to lie:

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 Ministry of Defense (MoD), which should be renamed the Ministry of Medical Testing on Citizens, wanted to assess “Britain’s vulnerability if the Russians were to have released clouds of deadly germs over the country.”

In some cases they used non-live biologicals, but not always. In other instances, they dropped poisonous zinc cadmium sulphide:

[Zinc cadmium sulphide] 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.

Even now, the UK government insists that this chemical is safe. However, it is well known that cadmium is highly toxic. It’s a heavy metal that can cause tremendous harm at even low exposures. Adverse effects include pneumonia, lung cancer, bone softening, kidney and liver failure, and gout. Barnett reports that it was considered a chemical weapon during World War II.

People on the southern coast of England were exposed to E. coli and Bacillus globigii, which is similar to anthrax.

The United States was involved, too, in these MoD attacks against British citizens. Massive spraying of the bacteria Serratia marcescens with phenol and an anthrax stimulant was done for four years in the 1970s.

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

Several similar attacks were performed on government buildings and public transport from 1952 through 1964. MoD wanted to see how vulnerable they were to such attacks. The London Underground was attacked with bacteria on the Northern line. They found that the bacteria were spread about 10 miles.

MoD even went to the bizarre method of attaching disease-inducing bacteria to spider webs in an effort to find out if they’d survive in different environments.

Keeping the Public in the Dark

The “safety” of these experiments was reviewed by two scientists who’d been paid by MoD. Unsurprisingly, they said there was no risk to the public, except possibly for a small number of elderly people or others already suffering from lung illness. Nonetheless, as Barnett reports:

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, which is part of the National Health Service (NHS), insists that there is such a cluster of problems, but Orman says, “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.”

It will comes as no surprise that the government has continued to keep this information from the public. The latest information, which was released to Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, is the most inclusive that the government has yet given.

Also confirmed by the report are bacteria releases on ships in the Caribbean and off the Scottish coast in the 1950s. According to the document:

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.

Tacit means implied. So, the military apparently decided that the public would have agreed to these tests, but didn’t bother to actually ask the public what they thought. Notice that those who carried the tests out didn’t try them on themselves. In typical double-speak, their spokesperson, Sue Ellison, stated:

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.

However, in response to whether these trials are still be performed, she stated:

It is not our policy to discuss ongoing research.

So, apparently we, the people, would certainly approve such experimentation that uses us as guinea pigs. However, we can’t be told about it because … well, because. And these experiments, which could kill huge numbers of people and cause ongoing misery, will save our lives.

And we’re supposed to trust this government?