We recieved this extended comment yesterday to my post: “House Members Want Info On Military’s Human Guinea Pigs.” As it has fallen off the front page, I thought I’d repost it here.
SHADY SHAD SHELLGAME?
The U.S. Army’s Project 112 and its Navy component, Project SHAD, started in 1961 when Robert McNamara and JFK allotted $4 billion and ten years to create a Bio-Chemical juggernaut. Decades of unanswered questions had just begun.
In Judith Miller’s 1999 book, “Germs”, William Capers Patrick III, the head of Bio-Chemical Weapons development programs at Fort Detrick, Maryland for more than 30 years, states, “We didn’t sit around talking about the moral implications of what we were doing. We were problem-solving… you never connected it to people.” Nonetheless, Dr. J. Clifton Spendlove did indeed connect it to people via the Army’s Deseret Test Center, Utah command post. Deposed for a class action suit brought by the VVA on behalf of some Project SHAD participants, Spendlove revealed sailors were purposely used as “human samplers”, citing several documents and films laying out the scope and methods of the tests. Mind you, these “human samplers” were never trained or warned nor given any “informed consent” opportunity to opt out. The callous disregard continues to this day as the Pentagon, VA, Institute of Medicine and others ignore all attempts at Congressional oversight intended to reveal the true impact of the events.
At least five Flathead Valley, Montana Sailors served in the Granville Hall. One died by age 36 from “cancer of unknown origin”. Some were there from 1963-70 as they transported Smithsonian Institution scientists to numerous locations during their “Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program”, the purpose of which was to determine whether migratory birds could be used as effective “avian vectors” to deliver Biological Weapons. They could. Prior to Project SHAD, the Granville Hall and its sister ship, the USS George Eastman, collected radioactive fallout during a decade-long period encompassing dozens of aboveground nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. Another Flathead Veteran sailed on the Granville Hall shortly after Project SHAD and has been awarded a VA 100% service-connected disability. He never knew of either preceding project until he saw my guest opinion in the Daily Inter Lake.
No one has produced any documentation indicating that these two ships had ever had their interiors effectively decontaminated. The Granville Hall was the main lab ship for the programs, vulnerable to many pathogenic contaminants. The George Eastman had deadly VX Gas pumped directly into its ventilation system. The disturbing truth is that although SHAD Veteran Frank Tetro has located over 350 “Granny Boys” since 1985, fewer than 10 have surfaced from the George Eastman.
Contrary to the title “Shipboard Hazard and Decontamination”, which insinuates the concept of defending U.S. Servicemen, there’s not one page of the 28,444 listed in the official disclosure of information on Project 112 mandated by Public Law 107-314 containing any data on protective gear created by these programs. Please see here. The entire program from start to finish was designed to find ways to create and distribute deadly Bio-Chemical Weapons. The more than 10,000 Human Test Rats used and abused along the way are consequently no more than an aging inconvenience.
The Billings Gazette quoted Jack Alderson as saying, “Most of them are very proud of what they did, they’d just like to have it acknowledged.” However, of the more than 150 Project 112 and Project SHAD participants who have contacted me since the programs began being declassified in early 2000, none are seeking a red badge of courage. The want answers. Early on, one unforgettable caller told me, “Last week I received notification that I was involved in Project SHAD. Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with liver, spleen, and pancreatic cancer. Can you help me?” He’d been deserted by his country and died in shameful ignominy.
Please help us find the survivors. It’s crucial to support Representative Rehberg, currently the only Republican co-sponsor out of 16 for House Resolution 4259 [The Veterans Right to Know Act]. If you know anyone who might have been involved, direct them to http//www1.va.gov/SHAD where there is contact information and lists of ships, land locations, and dates utilized. They can also receive information and assistance by calling the VA at (800) 749-8387 and/or the DoD at (800) 497-6261.
Thank you,
J.B. Stone
900 Wisconsin Avenue #16
Whitefish, MT 59937406-862-7514, 862-8739 – message
PS: J.B. served during Project SHAD on the Granville Hall in 1969. He was honorably discharged from the Navy less than 10 months afterward for unnamed “physical disabilities”. His infant daughter died from secondary SHAD exposures in 1980. He’s still waiting for approval of his VA Disability Claim.
Update: Here’s a recent Billings Gazette story:
Night after night, the jets growled overhead and sprayed clouds of dangerous germs and chemicals over the five U.S. tugboats drifting silently in the dark.
Each time, John Olsen hunkered inside tugboat No. 2085 and waited for the mist to settle.
He and the others then gathered air samples inside the boat and handed them over to the scientists who seemed out of place on a pitching tugboat more than 800 miles southwest of Hawaii.
In the morning, the sailors scrubbed the ship with powerful cleaning agents in preparation for the next airplane visit.
The tests, dubbed Shady Grove, were conducted between January and April of 1965 as part of a larger, top secret government program to try out chemical and biological weapons.
Olsen is sure that some of the germs leaked into the tugboats and is fairly convinced there’s a connection between Shady Grove and his health problems years later.
But back then, they assumed they were safe.
“We were just doing what we were supposed to do,” said Olsen, 65, who lives in Billings. “I trusted them.”
Now, 40 years later, those who took part in the tests are pressing the federal government to account for the harm the tests may have caused.
Read the whole thing.