Military scientists tested mustard gas on Indians

[lligrd]

Source: Guardian


· Hundreds of soldiers used in experiments
· Illnesses caused by carcinogen not tracked

Rob Evans
Saturday September 1, 2007
The Guardian


British military scientists sent hundreds of Indian soldiers into gas chambers and exposed them to mustard gas, documents uncovered by the Guardian have revealed.
The Guardian understands that the British military did not check up on the Indian soldiers after the experiments to see if they developed any illnesses. It is now recognised that mustard gas can cause cancer and other diseases.

Many suffered severe burns on their skin, including their genitals, leaving them in pain for days and even weeks. Some had to be treated in hospital.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2160245,00.html

[Ian David]

1. This is horrific.

<snip>

The Indian tests are a little-known part of Porton's huge programme of chemical warfare testing on humans. More than 20,000 British soldiers were subjected to chemical warfare trials involving poison gases, such as nerve gas and mustard gas, at Porton between 1916 and 1989.

Many of these British soldiers have alleged that they were duped into taking part in the tests, which have damaged their health in the years after the trials.

The reports record that in some cases Indian soldiers were exposed to mustard gas protected only by a respirator. On one occasion the gas mask of an Indian sepoy (a private) slipped, leaving him with severe burns on his eyes and face.

<snip>

Alan Care, a lawyer representing British troops tested at Porton, said: "I would be astonished if these Indian subjects gave any meaningful consent to taking part in these tests, particularly as they were conducted during the days of Empire. No one would have agreed ... if they knew beforehand what was going to happen."

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2160245,00.html


See also:

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762136.html

Institute Charged in Fernald Radiation Experiment Lawsuit
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V115/N49/radiation.49n.html

ABOUT DOWNWINDERS
http://www.downwinders.org/Aboutus.html

Atomic Soldiers: American Victims of Nuclear Experiments
http://alsos.wlu.edu/information.aspx?id=2313




At the University of Minnesota, Dr. Ansel Keyes -- the inventor of K-ration meals for GIs -- was commissioned to find out how millions of starving refugees in Europe and Asia could be brought back to health after the war. He asked for volunteers from CPS conscientious objector units. The volunteers would be starved, studied and then fed back to health. Two-hundred COs volunteered, and 36 were chosen for the project. To see a video segment about the starvation project, click here. The results of the research have been used by relief workers in hunger crises ever since.
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0800/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0800/stories/0801_0107.html



MI6 pays out over secret LSD mind control tests
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1716708,00.html


That's all OLD news, right?

Couldn't happen NOW, could it?

UK firm tried HIV drug on orphans
GlaxoSmithKline embroiled in scandal in which babies and children were allegedly used as 'laboratory animals'
Antony Barnett in New York
Sunday April 4, 2004
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1185305,00.html



ATS: US - Poor Trauma Victims Made Test Subjects for Medical Companies
http://www.sdreader.com/php/cover.php?mode=article&showpg=1&id=20050728

[Solly Mack]

2. I guess enough time has gone by that this can come out now

Wait enough time to admit your crimes and then you get to pretend how sorry you are and how things like this should never happen again and gee, just look how far we've come....



Well, government works that way anyway...

[KT2000]

3. All in the name of war

the US has dirty hands too.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Something similar may still be going on today

Marmar posted this earlier today about Paraguay : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x304869

If you the link , http://www.alternet.org/audits/58605 you'll find this :

A group of representatives from human rights organizations and universities from all over the world, including the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and a group from the University of Toulouse, France, traveled to Paraguay last July as part of the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas (CADA) to observe and report on the repression going on in the country linked to the presence of U.S. troops. The local citizens they interviewed said they were not told what medications they were given during the U.S. MEDRETEs.

Patients said they were often given the same treatments regardless of their illness. In some cases, the medicine produced hemorrhages and abortions.

When the medical treatment took place, patients reported that they were asked if they belonged to any kind of labor or social organization. Among the leaders of such organizations, dozens have been disappeared and tortured in recent years, just as they were during Latin America's "dirty wars" in the Reagan era.

I've split the above to show the bit to which I refer.

Aside from that there's this issue too : Pesticide Victims March in Managua
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x16
and note this : Nemagon-also known as dibromochloropropane, or DBCP-was developed in the early '50s in the United States by Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Chemicals and marketed as a miracle product.
Used to protect banana and pineapple plants, Nemagon destroys the microscopic worms that attack banana tree roots. Nemagon makes the trees grow and stay healthier, longer.
Today, we know that the companies had reason to worry about the potential danger of their product from the start. Laboratory tests conducted in the '50s revealed that Nemagon caused testicular atrophy in rats. Regardless, scientists defended the product and in 1961 it was given the green light by the Department of Agriculture. The pesticide was instantly successful with American fruit companies, which exported it to their plantations in Central America and all over the world.
The health problems caused by Nemagon were first observed in 1977. That year, a third of the workers in a California factory that produced the chemical were declared sterile. They sued Occidental Petroleum Corporation, their employer, which was forced to pay millions in compensation to the affected workers.

Nothing ever really changes.

[MadMaddie]

5. I was watching the History channel (I think)

And Sulpher Mustard Gas was invented in Germany during WWI by Jewish Scientist...he committed suicide when he realized what he created.

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Sulfur_mustard_-_History/id/1785260
<snip>
After a failed attempt on the Eastern front, it was first used effectively in World War I by the German army against Canadian soldiers in 1917 and later also against the French – the name Yperite comes from its usage by the German army near the city of Ypres. It took the British over a year to develop their own mustard gas weapon, first using it in September 1918 during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line.
<snip>

Another article...
http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-weapons/gas.htm

[entanglement]

6. Those who glorify and whitewash imperialism will, of course, pretend this was 'isolated'

or an 'aberration' as they've done (rather successfully) in the past. The Niall Ferguson school of revisionism and falsification is alive and well, after all.

[fed-up]

7. Wash D.C. protest and (gentically engineered?) tularemia-sunshine project

I was reading a little pamplet I have by the Sunshine Project and in it there is reference to genetically engineered Tularemia. I immediately thought of the protest in D.C. where sensors allegedly detected tularemia.

Today is the first time I googled this and came up with this site. I am not a member and so don't have access to the links. My neck is in too much pain to do further research, so feel free to have at it. And note that I am NOT a biologist, but do frequently wear a tinfoil hat. :)

http://www.democraticwarrior.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10251

http://www.airamericaplace.com/boards/lofiversion/index.php/t12229.html


http://www.sunshine-project.org/bwintro/gebw.html
Example 1: Bacteria causing unusual symptoms

Researchers from Obolensk near Moscow inserted a gene into Francisella tularensis, the causative agent of tularemia and a well known biological weapon agent. The gene made the bacteria produce beta-endorphin, an endogenous human drug, which caused changes in the behaviour of mice when infected with the transgenic bacteria. (2) According to the published results, the endorphin gene was not introduced into a fully virulent strain, but only into a vaccine strain.
If inserted into virulent F. tularensis, the victims would not show the usual symptoms of tularemia, but instead unusual symptoms that would obscure the diagnosis and delay therapy. Development of symptom-altered BW-agents has been identified as one possible application of genetic engineering for BW purposes by the US Department of Defense. (3)