BRITAIN鈥橲 Ministry of Defence should allow an immediate study of the health
risks facing survivors of chemical weapons tests it carried out until 1989, say
politicians and scientists.
The demands follow the publication this week of Gassed, a book
claiming that Britain deliberately exposed up to 30,000 servicemen to poison
gases in the world鈥檚 longest-running programme of chemical warfare experiments.
As 快猫短视频went to press Wiltshire police refused to confirm or
deny reports that 40 deaths were now under investigation as a result of the
tests.
The author, journalist Rob Evans, claims that many of the tests done secretly
during the cold war broke the Nuremberg code of ethics, introduced in 1947 to
avoid a repeat of the horrific experiments conducted in Nazi concentration camps
during the Second World War. A spokeswoman for Porton Down says: 鈥淭he actions
were consistent with the standards of the day.鈥� She adds that 20,000 servicemen
were exposed, not 30,000. But one leading expert on chemical warfare, chemical
pathologist Alastair Hay of Leeds University, says nerve gas tests done at
Porton Down 鈥渨ere ethically questionable and scientifically flawed because they
failed to properly assess the risk. These experiments on servicemen failed to
properly assess the risks. There is a huge question mark over whether their
consent was really informed. You wouldn鈥檛 get away with it today. 鈥� He says
there should be a large-scale investigation into the health of survivors.
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Ian Gibson, a Labour MP on the House of Commons Select Committee on Science
and Technology, backs Hay in calling for an investigation into the health
effects and ethics of the experiments. 鈥淚 think people were conned into the
tests,鈥� he says.
Gibson wants MPs to visit Porton Down as soon as possible to quiz scientists
there, and will raise the issue in the House of Commons this week. 鈥淚t would be
no surprise if people were suffering long-term health effects,鈥� he told New
快猫短视频. 鈥淧orton Down needs independent scrutiny.鈥�
The book is based on over 100 interviews with those who took part in and ran
the experiments at the Porton Down chemical warfare research centre in
Wiltshire, as well as dozens of previously confidential official reports. Evans
cites government documents that show young soldiers were exposed to sub-lethal
doses of mustard gas, nerve gas, tear gas and mind-bending drugs like LSD in
numerous experiments at Porton Down. The aim was to find out about the toxicity
of the gases, and many servicemen suffered illnesses as a result.
In the early 1950s, the liquid nerve gases sarin, soman and GF were dripped
on to the skin or clothes of 396 men. The experiment went disastrously wrong.
Five men were admitted to hospital, one had to be revived after suffering
respiratory failure, and one died. The death of 20-year-old airman Ronald
Maddison is the subject of a murder investigation launched in August 1999 by
Wiltshire police.
Hay suggests a health survey should look for links with respiratory diseases
and tumours. Men whose skin was exposed to mustard gas should be investigated
for skin cancers. Those who took part in the nerve gas experiments risk damage
to the nervous system, Hay says. This could include heart and muscular problems,
as well as mood swings and depression.
Britain is not alone in having conducted large-scale chemical weapons tests
on people. But its 73-year testing programme was exceptionally large. In the US,
only 15,000 people participated in chemical warfare experiments, and they were
stopped after a public outcry in 1975. Tests on 2000 people were carried out in
both Canada and Australia. Australia has awarded pensions to servicemen who took
part in mustard gas experiments and then suffered serious illness. The
volunteers at Porton Down have not received any such compensation.
Rex Watson, a former director of Porton Down, has defended the experiments as
ethical, given the threat that was posed by the Soviet Union during the cold
war. Like many of his scientific colleagues, he put himself forward for tests
alongside volunteers from the services.