Why Has Congress Ignored these Veterans since WW2

In an OP ED that was written by attorney Gordon Erspamer, who is leading the fight to attempt to get a little bit of justice for veterans that have been used in classified chemical weapons experiments, LSD and other illicit drugs, and biological weapons at bases spread across the nation, Fort Detrick MD, Edgewood Arsenal MD, Deseret Utah, off Hawaii, the Pacific Ocean open air tests. This government used tens of thousands of American soldiers as little more than "human guinea pigs" and then never gave them follow up medical care.

Why should it matter, we prosecuted both German and Japanese scientists and doctors after WW2 for doing the exact same thing to humans, yet in 1943 the Army started doing it also at Edgewood Arsenal and it continued thru 1975, and the release of the 1975 Department of the Army Inspector Generals Report on Human Experimentation, led to public outrage and Congress demanding that it end.

Since then the Department of Defense has authorized two studies based on Edgewood Arsenal veterans, one study on SHAD veterans and none of the Fort Detrick veterans. Since DOD wrote the parameters for the contracts with the IOM, much of what was needed to determine all of the potential harm to the veterans was kept from the IOM researchers, evidence that is known and published by the National Institute of Health, SIPRI, the international Institute that monitors chemical and biological weapons treaties, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In a 1975 study published by a Doctor Karl Heinz Lohs who had treated German soldiers from WW2 era chemical weapons programs, which were primarily Sarin and mustard agents. Dr. Lohs treated the men from the late 40s thru 1974 and in this report he listed all of the medical issues they had developed just handling the weapons after they had been manufactured, from leakage, etc. The list is long and covers all systems of the body. DOD prevented the IOM from using these known studies for their reports in 1993 Veterans at Risk and the March 2003 Sarin Report.

In the attached OP ED from Gordon Erspamer he explains how the nation has failed these veterans and their families, instead of keeping the "PROMISE" they were used and dumped.

He does explain that Great Britain and Canada which both ran similar programs at Porton Downs, England and Gagetown, Canada have settled with the veterans of the experiements, Canada a few years ago and Great Britain just settled their cases last year after their veterans were finally able to get their case before a British Judge.

The sums of money were not large, I believe Canada paid 24,000 US Dollars to each veteran or their widow, and Great Britain was even smaller, but what was the large part of the settlement was the fact their nations finally after decades of denying that this even took place, finally admitted it had abused these men, it like the US Army had falsely enticed their soldiers to volunteer, under false pretense, promises of easy work weeks, in the Edgewood Arsenal example, the men were promised four day work weeks, off every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The work days of Monday thru Thursday were from 0800-1200 unless they were chosen to take part in an experiment  that either lasted longer thru the afternoon or required overnight observations. No guard duty, no Kitchen Police (KP) nor any other type work details that the Army normally usually used idle soldiers.

We were also promised TDY compensation of two dollars a day, and we were authorized travel from Fort Lewis, Wa to Edgewood Arsenal, Md, that meant nine days travel each way, per diem which was about 30 dollars a day then to cover our meals and hotel bills. The entire compensation for the 60 day temporary duty (TDY) came to approximately 4200.00 per man, since there were ten of us selected from Fort Lewis for that summer session in June – August 1974. We all collected almost an entire years pay for this three months of our lives, and we had been promised medals for participation that would give us permanent promotion points for boards that would enhance our Army careers, some of us were promised A|rmy Commendation Medals, others were promised the Soldiers Medal, as the experiments we were subjected to were dangerous and enabled the Army to field better chemical suits and protective masks for the battlefields of the future. They told us we were helping to save unknown thousands of lives by doing what we were doing at Edgewood Arsenal.

Yet, they never told us the entire truth, they left out a few parts, they told us that for the most part the experiments were duplicates of previous experiments and that they were safe, they never told us about the nine German doctors from WW2 era Germany that were involved in the human experiments due to the experience they had gained at places like Dachau, Auschwitz, working with Doctor Mengele, that they also had the research data from Unit 731 of the Japanese Army where they had used Chinese as human research subjects and they were validating their studies using American soldiers, as the test subjects. The Army and the government lawyers will tell you they have consent forms signed by the 7120 men of Edgewood Arsenal, as I am sure they have consent forms from the other men used at Fort Detrick and SHAD/112 participants.

I contend as other "test vets" will that there is a difference between consent and informed consent. If you are not given all the pertinent information that should be disclosed then can a person give informed consent. I and other veterans contend that we should have been told that there were nine Nazi doctors and scientists that worked at Edgewood Arsenal involved in experimentating on American soldiers, the fact that Doctor Sidney Gottlieb and the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick was actually not Army employees, but rather CIA employees, and DR Gottlieb was in charge of all programs for the CIA that dealt with chemical weapons, biological weapons and drug experiments. He has been linked to the death of DR Frank Olson in November 1953. Which the Ford Adminsitration, with the negotiations by Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld wih the Olson family, ending with an apology by the CIA and a check from the US Governemnt for 750,000 dollars.

The veterans used and abused by the same program led astray by Dr Gottlieb have received nothing, nada, not a dime. When we attempt to file claims with the Veterans Administration we are told there is no documentation to prove what we were exposed to and if we could have even been harmed by it. The March 2003 IOM report did show is that of the 7120 enlisted men used at Edgewood Arsenal, 40% could not be found, these are men who would have been between the ages of 45 & 65 in FY2000. The researchers has access to all government databases, IRS, VA and SS they could only locate 4022 survivors.

3098 men presumed dead, yes we know that some died in Vietnam, an early report showed that some men died in their 30’s from cardiac arrest, unusual for infantry soldiers that had been prescreened medically and physically before being selected for duty at Edgewood, the recruiters took only the best, the volunteers had to have a GT score higher than 110, so besides being in excellent physical and mental health, they also had to have higher IQs than the men selected for Officer Candidate School (OCS) which only required a GT score of 100 at the time.

http://veteran4veteran.blogspot.com/  For Further information on the experiments from the Atomic tests thru the end of human experimentation by the military in 1975.

For full disclosure I am obviously a member of the class action lawsuit now before the 9th Circuit that Gordon Eerspamer is representing, there are six claimants named, but if it is awarded class action it would cover all 7120 men, and hopefully their heirs.

My stepfather Dale (NMN) Jennings TSGT USAF was an Atomic veteran, besides going to Hirsoshimoat the end of WW2 he flew many of the data gathering flights while in the Air Force over the Nevada Test site and he could not tell his doctors or family about the flights, like myself he signed National Security Agreements that promised us 25 years in a military prison for disclosure or our activities. He was treated for three different kinds of cancer that is on the presumptive list for the radiation exposures, he died at the time Congress approved the 75,000 dollar payments for atomic veterans thru the RECA Act which is administered by the Justice Department.

I encourage you to read Gordons OP ED and then take a few minutes and write or call your Congressmen or Senator and tell them it is time that this nation keeps the "PROMISE" to these veterans and their families, that if they were harmed, the Veterans Administration would take care of them medically and financially if necessary, not turn their back on  them, because the DOD and the CIA do not want to be embarassed by a secret that is now 66 years old since the World War 2 experiments and 34 years since the last human experiment was conducted at Edgewood Arsenal.

The only veterans that receive any type of care due to the experiments are the SHAD/112 veterans who are listed as category 6 patients at the VA, which means they can obtain all of their medical care from the VA, but they must pay co-pays for all prescriptions, veterans in Category 5 or higher rated higher than 50% are the only ones exempt from paying the co-pays.

I am service connected by the VA at 100%, 60% and 10%  for reasons other than medical issues related to Edgewood Arsenal, so I have nothing to gain personally by continuing to advocate for full accountability by this nation, I continue to write about it because I feel the other 7119 veterans deserve the same care and if eligible, the compensation they deserve. This nation should not wait until they all die, and they oops  we should have acted sooner.