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A: Ft. Detrick comprises 1200 acres, (about 10% of the total land area of the City of Frederick , population 60,000). “Area A” contains all of the buildings for the activities summarized above, as well as a substantial number of recently-constructed single-family homes for Army families, a very large gymnasium, commissary, etc. (Though remarkably it still has places in it that would be easy to penetrate), the perimeter fencing has recently been bolstered, which critics describe as contributing to a militaristic presence in the middle of a densely populated community.
Q: What is going on in “Area B?”
A: “Area B” is about 400 acres and is separated from “Area A,” and has livestock on it used in testing by USAMRIID. Area B was a landfill site. Though questions were raised beginning in the 1970s about possible leakage from Detrick dumping, it was not until the early 1990’s that monitoring wells were installed that revealed in the ground water the presence of TCE and PCE, both cancer-causing chemicals, at levels between 1,000 and 5,000 times the levels determined to be safe by the EPA. It became clear that the water supplies of nearby residents had been severely contaminated. On July 1, 2003, the local Frederick News-Post published a front-page article “Cancer questions: Residents point finger at Detrick,” based on the statements of many of Detrick’s neighbors about the high incidence of cancer in their families.
Q: How have Ft. Detrick authorities and the Army responded?
A: The clean-up has dragged along ever since the early 1990s. Two thousand metric tons of hazardous waste have been unearthed. In 2003, sanitation crews were shocked to find vials containing live germs. The discarded biological agents included anthrax, Brucella melitensis, which causes the virulent flu-like disease brucellosis, and klebsiella, a cause of pneumonia. (On May 28, 2003, The Guardian, a prominent English newspaper, published an article entitled “US finds evidence of WMD at last -- buried in a field in Maryland .”)
Q: Surely, public officials would raise questions about this situation.
A: On November 13, 2008, both of Maryland’s U.S. Senators, ordinarily quite protective with respect to Ft. Detrick, stated in a letter to then President-elect Obama: “[W]e write to draw your attention to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) position that it is not subject to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to administer federal environmental protection statutes. The Department of Defense has been in flagrant and repeated violation of these statutes at installations in Maryland and around the country. . . . [A]dmitting flaws in its characterization of contamination at Ft. Detrick Maryland as well as the handling of the clean-up there, Secretary Davis promised that the Army would not oppose EPA’s decision to list Area B at Fort Detrick Maryland on the National Priorities List. Yet, we now have a clear sign that DOD appears to be shirking its responsibilities and legal obligations to protect the health and welfare of our constituents, particularly . . . neighbors outside the gate. As recently as November 3, 2008, Secretary Davis wrote to the EPA asking that the Agency refrain from placing Ft. Detrick on the Superfund list in spite of the fact that the site meets all the listing criteria.”
Q: Wow. Have there been any injuries or deaths as a result of the biological research at Ft. Detrick ? I understand some of its streets are named after fallen employees.
A: In general, secrecy in the name of “national security” has concealed the consequences of biological research at Ft. Detrick . According to the official account, three people have died as the result of contracting diseases being cultivated at Ft. Detrick , all before the overtly offensive program was terminated in 1969. A microbiologist and an electrician died from anthrax, and an animal caretaker died from the Machupo virus. The official account does not acknowledge what has come to light about one of the anthrax cases, namely that, at first, the victim was placed by his personal physician in a Frederick hospital, and that “bronchial pneumonia” was listed on his death certificate.
Q: Sounds like a cover-up.
A: One must study Pulitzer Prize-winning Seymour Hersh’s seminal work, Chemical & Biological Warfare: America’s Hidden Arsenal (Doubleday & Company, 1969) to discover the case of an enlisted laboratory technician at Detrick contracting pneumonic plague. In a memo classified as secret, Detrick officials cautioned that this lab technician was also a life guard at a public swimming pool in the community. But no attempt was made to inform Frederick residents of the danger, or to provide preventative antibiotic treatment. There was also a case of an enlisted man residing off base who contracted meningitis, which can be highly contagious. The Frederick County Health Commissioner was not informed of this case until weeks after it was discovered. Regarding the plague case, this Health Commissioner told Hersh: “I co-operated with [ Ft. Detrick officials]. I had an obligation to them – I had a secret clearance. They told me not to report the case [because] we didn’t want to alarm anyone.” Referring to “funny cases” related to Ft. Detrick , this Commissioner also told Hersh about questionable incidents involving typhoid fever and tuberculosis.
Then there was the case of Frank Olson, whose death back in 1953 was attributed by officials to suicide. Largely as the result of ongoing efforts by one of Frank Olson’s sons, Eric, it has come to light that Dr. Olson was actually in charge of the CIA’s “Special Operations” at Ft. Detrick, that he was gradually becoming more and more disturbed by the CIA’s secret programs at Ft. Detrick, and that after he expressed some of his misgivings and shortly before his death, he was given LSD by CIA agents. In 1994, Dr. Olson’s son Eric retained Dr. James Starrs, a noted forensic pathologist at the George Washington University Medical Center , to assemble a team of experts to conduct an exhumation and autopsy on Frank Olson. After months of tests and investigation, Dr. Starrs concluded that the circumstances of Dr. Olson’s death had been deliberately covered up by the CIA, and that his death was the result of “homicide deft, deliberate, and diabolical.” (Dr. Olson’s son Eric has also uncovered documents that establish that Dick Cheney became personally involved in this cover-up – see Eric’s website, www.frankolsonproject.org).
Q: Are there any other examples of deaths or injuries at Ft. Detrick ?
A: With regard to injuries resulting from biological research at Ft. Detrick, it is instructive to consider an article written by several medical doctors who work at USAMRIID entitled “Experience in the Medical Management of Potential Laboratory Exposures to Agents of Bioterrorism at USAMRIID” that appeared in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine: Volume 46(8), August 2004, pp. 801-811:
“The large number of exposure incidents reported . . . serves as a reminder that work in a laboratory of this type is inherently hazardous. . . . [W]e recognize that work in containment laboratories is inherently hazardous because of the need to work with sharp objects (ie, needles) and animals, which can be unpredictable. In addition, personal protective equipment may inadvertently increase the potential for incidents by limiting the field of vision, tactile sensation, and communication. . . . A laboratory worker was evaluated for a potential ocular exposure to orthopox viruses resulting from a splash of condensate. . . .[A]ll 17 persons involved in the [anthrax] letter handling were considered at potentially significant risk for exposure due to the readily aerosolizable spores. . . . The route of exposure [in another case] was probably inhalational as the result of a malfunction (leak) of the filter in the bio-safety cabinet that was subsequently discovered. . . . As research on the agents of bioterrorism becomes more widespread, an increase in occupational exposures to bioterrorist agents may be expected . . .
“Much of our knowledge about biosafety has come from investigations into the mechanisms and activities that caused workers to become infected . . . However, historically the majority of individuals, over 80% in one report, diagnosed with laboratory-acquired infections, could not identify a known incident or breach in laboratory policy responsible for their infection. . . There were 77 individuals evaluated for potential exposures to 107 viral agents . . . [N]o vaccine existed for many of [these] viral agents. . . .” This Journal article also refers to instance after instance of the failure of existent vaccines to prevent infection.
