The Tuskegee Timeline

The Study Begins

In 1932, the Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record
the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks. It was called
the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male."
The study initially involved 600 black men 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the
disease. The study was conducted without the benefit of patients' informed consent. Researchers
told the men they were being treated for "bad blood," a local term used to describe several
ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. In truth, they did not receive the proper
treatment needed to cure their illness. In exchange for taking part in the study, the men received
free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance. Although originally projected to last 6
months, the study actually went on for 40 years.
What Went Wrong?
In July 1972, an Associated Press story about the Tuskegee Study caused a public outcry that led
the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs to appoint an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to
review the study. The panel had nine members from the fields of medicine, law, religion, labor,
education, health administration, and public affairs.
The panel found that the men had agreed freely to be examined and treated. However, there was
no evidence that researchers had informed them of the study or its real purpose. In fact, the men
had been misled and had not been given all the facts required to provide informed consent.
The men were never given adequate treatment for their disease. Even when penicillin became the
drug of choice for syphilis in 1947, researchers did not offer it to the subjects. The advisory panel
found nothing to show that subjects were ever given the choice of quitting the study, even when
this new, highly effective treatment became widely used.
The Study Ends and Reparation Begins
The advisory panel concluded that the Tuskegee Study was "ethically unjustified"--the knowledge
gained was sparse when compared with the risks the study posed for its subjects. In October
1972, the panel advised stopping the study at once. A month later, the Assistant Secretary for
Health and Scientific Affairs announced the end of the Tuskegee Study.
In the summer of 1973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the study participants and
their families. In 1974, a $10 million out-of-court settlement was reached. As part of the
settlement, the U.S. government promised to give lifetime medical benefits and burial services to
all living participants. The Tuskegee Health Benefit Program (THBP) was established to provide
these services. In 1975, wives, widows and offspring were added to the program. In 1995, the
program was expanded to include health as well as medical benefits. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention was given responsibility for the program, where it remains today in
the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. The last study
participant died in January 2004. The last widow receiving THBP benefits died in January 2009.
There are 15 offspring currently receiving medical and health benefits.
Timeline
1895 Booker T. Washington at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition,
outlines his dream for black economic development and gains support of northern philanthropists,
including Julius Rosenwald (President of Sears, Roebuck and Company).
1900 Tuskegee educational experiment gains widespread support. Rosenwald Fund provides
monies to develop schools, factories, businesses, and agriculture.
1915 Booker T. Washington dies; Robert Motin continues work.
1926 Health is seen as inhibiting development and major health initiative is started. Syphilis is
seen as major health problem. Prevalence of 35 percent observed in reproductive age population.
1929 Aggressive treatment approach initiated with mercury and bismuth. Cure rate is less than
30 percent; treatment requires months and side effects are toxic, sometimes fatal.
1929 "Wall Street Crash"--economic depression begins.
1931 Rosenwald Fund cuts support to development projects. Clark and Vondelehr decide to follow
men left untreated due to lack of funds in order to show need for treatment program.
1932 Follow-up effort organized into study of 399 men with syphilis and 201 without. The men
would be given periodic physical assessments and told they were being treated. Motin agrees to
support study if "Tuskegee Institute gets its full share of the credit" and black professionals are
involved (Dr. Dibble and Nurse Rivers are assigned to study).
1934 First papers suggest health effects of untreated syphilis.
1936 Major paper published. Study criticized because it is not known if men are being
treated. Local physicians asked to assist with study and not to treat men. Decision was made to
follow the men until death.
1940 Efforts made to hinder men from getting treatment ordered under the military draft effort.
1945 Penicillin accepted as treatment of choice for syphilis.
1947 USPHS establishes "Rapid Treatment Centers" to treat syphilis; men in study are not
treated, but syphilis declines.
1962 Beginning in 1947, 127 black medical students are rotated through unit doing the study.
1968 Concern raised about ethics of study by Peter Buxtun and others.
1969 CDC reaffirms need for study and gains local medical societies' support (AMA and NMA
chapters officially support continuation of study).
1972 First news articles condemn studies.
1972 Study ends.
1973 Congress holds hearings and a class-action lawsuit is filed on behalf of the study
participants.
1974 A $10 million out-of-court settlement is reached and the U.S. government promised to give
lifetime medical benefits and burial services to all living participants. The Tuskegee Health Benefit
Program (THBP) was established to provide these services.
1975 Wives, widows and offspring were added to the program.
1995 The program was expanded to include health as well as medical benefits.
1997 On May 16th President Clinton apologizes on behalf of the Nation.
1999 Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care hosts 1st
Annual Commemoration of the Presidential Apology.
2001 President's Council on Bioethics was established.
2004 CDC funds 10 million dollar cooperative agreement to continue work at Tuskegee University
National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care.
2004 The last U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee participant dies on January
16.
2006 Tuskegee University holds formal opening of Bioethics Center.
2007 CDC hosts Commemorating and Transforming the Legacy of the United States Public Health
Service (USPHS) Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.
2009 The last widow receiving THBP benefits dies on January 27.

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Page last updated: September 24, 2013
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1b. http://www.med.navy.mil/bumed/Documents/Healthcare%20Ethics/Racism-And-Research.pdf

Tuskegee Syphilis Study

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From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. government sponsored the nation's longest-running public health
experiment in and around Tuskegee,Alabama. Under financial constraints imposed by the Great
Depression, Tuskegee Syphilis Subjectsthe U.S. Public Health Service (PHS)
discontinued a successful program to document and treat syphilis in rural African American
populations and replaced it with a study of the effects of untreated, late-stage, latent syphilis in
African American men. The study was conducted with the cooperation of Tuskegee Institute and
the public health departments of Macon County and the state of Alabama but without the consent
of the participants who thought they were being treated. It ended only after a media expos
prompted a national outcry. Controversy stemming from the experiment, now known as the
Tuskegee Syphilis Study, prompted major reforms in medical research and a formal apology to the
program's unwitting participants by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Syphilis is a venereal disease caused by a microscopic spirochete (a type of bacteria) that is
transmitted through sexual contact or from mothers to children at birth. It is most infectious in its
early stage, when sores, called chancres, appear. In the second stage, infected individuals often
experience painful rashes, sores, and swellings. Left untreated, the disease goes into a third,
generally non-infectious latent stage. Syphilis does not go away, but it can stay dormant for years
or even decades. It can cause complications that affect major organs, such as the heart or brain,
in about two-thirds of all cases. Debility, insanity, and death are often, but not always, the
consequences.
When the Tuskegee study began, syphilis sufferers usually were treated with a combination of
heavy metals: neo-arsephenamine, bismuth, and mercury in individualized regimens that often
lasted more than a year. Studies conducted in urban clinics David
Albrittonand research performed by the PHS appeared to suggest differences in both the nature
and extent of the disease among whites and among African Americans, although there was no
biological basis for the differences. Many physicians assumed, inaccurately, that whites with
syphilis were more likely to suffer from neurological symptoms and that blacks were more likely to
suffer from cardiovascular complications, a conclusion based partly on faulty understandings of the
disease process. Widely held assumptions regarding biological differences between blacks and
whites also influenced the thinking of researchers during the Jim Crow era.

Public Health Service Conducts Syphilis Survey
In 1929, with funding from the philanthropic Rosenwald Fund, the PHS began a project in six
southern counties, including Macon County in Alabama, to survey and treat black men and women
with syphilis. Using the somewhat inaccurate blood tests of the day, researchers in Macon County
found a 39.8-percent infection rate among the 3,684 black men and women tested. Through a
combination of philanthropic and public funds, nearly 1,400 of those people began treatment for
their disease. Pleased by the results, the PHS now had both a model for studies of the prevalence
of disease and a way to develop a rural treatment program.
These studies raised another question. The country's leading syphilis experts were puzzled as to
why some patients did well with little or no treatment in the second and third stages, while others
did not. PHS officials expressed concerns about this phenomenon to public health officials in
Alabama, Macon County, and Tuskegee Institute and outlined a short-term program of minimal
treatment for a select group of black men who were assumed to be in the third, or dormant, stage.
PHS officials anticipated that the findings might indicate that treatment at certain stages of syphilis
was unnecessary. They began another smaller program on latent syphilis in Tuskegee that focused
only on men. As the Great Depression deepened in the early 1930s, however, the PHS and the
Rosenwald Fund became increasingly unable to continue funding. PHS officers saw in this turn of
events an opportunity for what is called a "study in nature" of untreated syphilis. That is, they
assumed in this case that it would be "natural" for poor African Americans not to be treated.
Eunice RiversThe PHS selected only male subjects because it was easier
for them to give a history of the visible sores and out of concern that possibly pregnant women
could pass the disease on to their children. With the help of a Tuskegee Institute nurse, Eunice
Rivers, officials set about finding subjects and controls (those without the disease) in Macon and
surrounding counties. Advertisement by word of mouth, in houses of worship, and through
employers brought local men to Tuskegee Institute's hospital and the county health department
for examinations and blood tests. The study began, as had the Rosenwald program, with
treatment. As the number of individuals showing up for treatment rose, however, costs began to
skyrocket, putting the entire plan in jeopardy. In response, PHS physicians Taliferro Clark,
Raymond Vonderlehr, and O. C. Wenger decided to shift their focus to a study ofuntreated syphilis,
modeled on a retrospective study of white men in Oslo, Norway, conducted on early syphilis at a
time when mercury was the only treatment.

No Informed Consent
The PHS selected 399 black men with late-stage syphilis and 201 uninfected men to serve as
controls. As was typical for medical studies at the time, there was no real informed consent. The
men were led to believe that the rubs, tonics, and aspirins given them were treatments for their
"bad blood," the general term used in many communities for syphilis. Even the painful spinal taps
were explained not as a diagnostic procedure (to check for neurological syphilis) but as a "back
shot." PHS physicians realized that the best scientific data would come from autopsies because
doctors would be able to see directly how much damage the disease had done to the men's bodies.
They therefore authorized Rivers to offer $50 to participating families in exchange for autopsy
agreements prior to burial. Local doctors were asked to withhold treatment from the men,
although the extent of their compliance is uncertain. Rivers also provided food and clothing to the
men and their families and referrals for medical care for other illnesses.
In the ensuing decades, the study took on a life of its own. Generations of PHS doctors came
through Tuskegee to examine the men and participate in the study. The Alabama and
Eunice Rivers and Dr. Walter EdmondsonMacon County health departments
turned a blind eye to the study's violations of state law requiring the reporting and treatment of
venereal disease, but the study was never really invisible. Between 1936 and 1973, researchers
published 13 reports in medical journals in which the men were sometimes referred to as
"volunteers." As more and more participants died, the statistics provided a clear message:
untreated syphilis had shortened their lives and caused many, but not all, of their deaths. Even
with such dramatic findings, the study continued.
During World War II, the PHS, with the help of Macon County health officer Dr. Murray Smith,
made sure that none of the study's subjects were drafted. Had they been, their syphilis would
have been detected and treated. When penicillin became widely available in the late 1940s as an
effective cure for the disease, the PHS made an effort to ensure that the men did not receive the
drug, although penicillin might not have helped those already in the last stages of the disease.
Despite these efforts, some of the men did receive penicillin from other health care providers in
the 1950s, probably to treat other illnesses.

Questions of Ethics
When PHS researchers published reports on the study or gave lectures at medical meetings,
physicians occasionally questioned the ethics of the study. Their concerns were brushed aside by
the PHS doctors, who asserted that they were doing critical public health work. Other concerns
about the study expressed within the PHS also were brushed aside. Even after Nazi experiments
on prisoners in Germany became public knowledge and were denounced, the Tuskegee experiment
went unquestioned.
In 1966, Peter Buxtun, who was tracking venereal disease cases for the San Francisco Health
Department, heard about the study from a colleague during a coffee break. He was outraged by
the idea that citizens just like those he was trying to help were being willfully denied treatment by
the PHS. He requested copies of the PHS reports and began a campaign through government
channels to end the study. Stonewalled at every turn, Buxtun gave his information to Jean Heller,
an Associated Press reporter, who published the story on July 25, 1972, in the Washington Star.
Dr. Walter EdmondsonThe outcry that followed was international in scope. The
story broke at a time when other deadly and unethical medical experiments were becoming more
widely known, and it dropped a bombshell in the medical research world. Additionally, withholding
treatment from black men in such an important black community fueled the outrage that had
come to a head in the recent civil rights struggle. Famed civil-rights attorney Fred D. Gray of
Tuskegee andMontgomery sued the PHS and Alabama on behalf of the men and their survivors in
a case that settled out of court for $10 million and medical care for the families. A federal
commission, U.S. Senate hearings at which Gray and four of the survivors testified, and
widespread newspaper coverage led to condemnation of the study. Reverberations from the outcry
pushed forward the establishment of institutional review boards for the approval of research
studies, with strict guidelines about informing participants about the purposes and potential
consequences of taking part in such studies. No one was ever prosecuted for the crimes committed
during the study, despite violations of Alabama state law on reporting disease and what could have
been construed as intentionally causing deaths.
The study officially ended in 1973, and the last survivor died in 2004, but the impact continues.
The Tuskegee study is often cited as the reason that many African Americans avoid medical care
or refuse to participate in clinical trials, although it is clearly part of a long history of mistrust. The
study is taught as a major example in bioethics courses on how not to conduct research and was
fictionalized in the HBO movieMiss Evers' Boys. An outcome of the federal apology in 1997 was the
creation of the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University. The racism and scientific
arrogance that underlay the study's rationale continues to inform the use of human subjects in
trials in the fields of health care and scientific investigation.

Additional Resources

Gray, Fred D. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Montgomery, Ala.: Black Belt Press, 1998.
Jones, James H. Bad Blood. New York: Free Press, 1993.
Reverby, Susan M., ed. Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
"The Deadly Deception." NOVA. Boston: WGBH Educational Foundation, 1993. Distributed by Films
of the Humanities and Sciences.
Miss Evers' Boys. Directed by Joseph Sargent. New York: HBO Films, 2001.
Susan M. Reverby
Wellesley College


Published March 15, 2007
Last updated April 25, 201
1c. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1116






2a.
Hidden history of US germ testing
Fifty years ago, American
scientists were in a frantic
race to counter what they
saw as the Soviet threat
from germ warfare.
Biological pathogens they
developed were tested on
volunteers from a pacifist
church and were also
released in public places.
The remarkable story is
told in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Hotel Anthrax.
In the 1950s, the Seventh-day Adventist Church struck an
extraordinary deal with the US Army. It would provide test
subjects for experiments on biological weapons at the Fort
Detrick research centre near Washington DC.
The volunteers were conscientious objectors who agreed to
be infected with debilitating pathogens. In return, they were
exempted from frontline warfare.
Fort Detrick was working on weapons it could use in an
offensive capacity as well as ways of defending its troops and
citizens.
Hotel Anthrax uses declassified documents, evidence from
Senate investigations and personal testimony to trace the
American bio-weapon programme during this period.
The research involved anthrax, other lethal bacteria and
biological poisons. The scientists also conducted tests on an
unsuspecting American public.
Rabbit fever

Seventh Day Adventists were human guinea pigs
in Operation Whitecoat

More than 2,000 volunteers, nicknamed the "white coats",
passed through Fort Detrick between 1954 and 1973, where
they worked as lab technicians, as well as offering up their
bodies for science.
One white coat, George Shores, tells of how he was infected
with tularaemia or rabbit fever.
A giant metal sphere, known
as the Eight Ball because of
its resemblance to a snooker
ball, was used in the
experiment. Technicians
exploded prototype bio-weapons inside the structure.
"They had like telephone booths all the way around the
outside of the Eight Ball and you went into the telephone
booth and shut the door and put on a mask like a gas mask.
"It was hooked up to the material that was inside the Eight
Ball and you breathed it in," explained Mr Shores.
He began to feel ill before too long.
"Even my gums hurt. I don't think I have ever been so sick in
all my life. First it started as a headache and achy feelings
and it just kept progressing.
"I just wanted to breathe enough to keep alive. I would just
take little gasps of breath and I would hold it for as long as I
could because it hurt so bad.
"I can imagine if someone was using that agent in the
battlefield the soldier would just have to lie down - he would
not be able to function."
The white coat volunteers
were not infected with the
most lethal microbes. Their
role was to test the
effectiveness of new vaccines
and antibiotics and as soon as
they became ill, they were
given medical treatment.
Within a few days, George
Shores began to recover.
But America's Institute of Medicine is conducting a study of
more than 6,000 veterans who say their health has been
compromised by secret tests in the Cold War years.
Some of these were veteran sailors who were involved in
tests known as SHAD - Shipborne Hazard and Defense -
which involved spraying lethal chemicals such as sarin and
nerve gases in the open sea.

Even my gums hurt. I don't think I
have ever been so sick in all my life

George Shores

Fort Detrick is a US Army biological warfare
research facility
The BBC programme makers also obtained declassified
documents prepared by the US Department of Veterans
Affairs which refer to a study of nearly 100 SHAD veterans
who have since died.
It found the veterans were three times more likely to have
developed one of a group of killer diseases as a sample group
in the general population.
It concludes: "This study does suggest that veterans who
participated in Project SHAD may be at increased risk for
cerebrovascular and respiratory diseases."
Subway experiment
But it wasn't just the white coat volunteers and sailors who
were subject to experiments. Scientists used what they
thought was a harmless simulant in major bio-weapon tests
across US cities and on public transport.
It was a bacteria which they believed was harmless but which
would mimic the dispersal of deadly biological agents such as
anthrax.
But later research showed that the strain of Bacillus globigii,
or BG, did pose a risk to people who were ill or whose
immune system was failing.
The programme hears from a retired scientist whose job in
1966 was to drop light bulbs carrying BG on the New York
subway. He would then measure how the simulant might
spread in the event of a real attack, using a motorised
vacuum devise concealed inside a suitcase.
Wally Pannier, 82, recalls: "We'd just drop light bulbs with
the powdered stimulant inside.
"I think it spread pretty good because you had a natural
aerosol developed every few minutes from every train that
went past."
In 1994, the Senate
Committee on Veterans'
Affairs conducted what it
described as a comprehensive
analysis stretching back 50
years of the extent to which veterans were exposed to
potentially dangerous substances without knowledge or
consent.
It was chaired by John D Rockefeller.
In a damning report, it concluded that the Department of
Defense (DoD) repeatedly failed to comply with required
ethical standards when using human subjects in military

It's very hard to try and put today's
ethics on standards 20, 30, 40 years
ago

Dr Michael Kilpatrick
research - and that the DoD demonstrated a pattern of
misrepresenting the danger of various exposures and
continued to do so.
Dr Michael Kilpatrick, a medical adviser to the DoD, claims
the concerns which SHAD veterans have been raising may,
finally, be changing that behaviour.
"It's very hard to try and put today's ethics on standards 20,
30, 40 years ago. That's not to excuse it. I think they were
trying to protect people using the medical science that was
available at that time.
"We're taking a look at any current tests that require consent
of our military personnel.
"We're making sure that there is an archive, a registry, a
way to get back to all of the information."
Hear part 1 of Hotel Anthrax at Radio 4's Listen
again page.
Part 2 is on Monday, 20 February, 2006 at 2000 GMT.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/file_on_4/4701196.stm






Project Whitecoat
The Adventist Contribution to Biowarfare
A U.S. Army project that ended over 25 years ago is once again the
subject of scrutiny. Project Whitecoat was the Army's code name for a
series of germ warfare studies conducted on about 2,300 Seventh-day
Adventist servicemen from 1954 to 1973. Now the Army is investigating the
long-term effects the project may have had on participants. Whitecoat
veterans gathered recently for a reunion in Frederick, Maryland. Most are
proud of the role they played in the nation's defense and report little or no
adverse impact on their health, according to recent stories by the
Associated Press[1] and National Public Radio[2]. While there may be few
who support the use of human guinea pigs in biowarfare research, there
are larger issues that are once again emerging from Project Whitecoat.
They center around the role the Seventh-day Adventist Church played in
the U.S. Army's development of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) of
mass destruction.
Under strict secrecy, the U.S. Army established Camp Detrick outside of
Frederick, Maryland during World War II for the sole purpose of developing
germ weapons. The program was controlled by the Army's Chemical
Warfare Service, a branch that had worked with gas weapons that were
used by the U.S. in World War I. The Army began to study both the
offensive and defensive aspects of biowarfare.
In 1952 the Army Medical Corps stationed a medical unit at Fort Detrick
and in 1954 this unit began using Seventh-day Adventist soldiers in its
research, presumably in the defensive aspects of germ warfare. In 1956
the medical unit was reorganized into a permanent and independent unit
named the United States Army Medical Unit, Fort Detrick. In 1969 the
name was changed again to the United States Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). Fort Detrick was home to
what became known as "Project Whitecoat," the code name for the group
of Seventh-day Adventist soldiers who were used as human guinea pigs in
biowarfare research.
Human Guinea Pigs Supplied by Adventist Church
Project Whitecoat was unique in the armed forces in that it exclusively
used as test subjects soldiers who were Seventh-day Adventists. These
young Adventist men had been drafted into the army and registered as
"conscientious objectors," those who refused to perform combat roles on
religious grounds. These objectors were given a 1-A-O classification and
sent to the U.S. Army Medical Training Center at Fort Sam Houston,
Texas. There they trained to be Army medics. It was from this non-
combatant medical corps that the Army selected its test subjects for Project
Whitecoat.
If only half of the non-combatants training at Fort Sam Houston were
Seventh-day Adventists, why were Adventists the only ones selected from
that pool of soldiers? The reason for this was a "handshake" agreement
Adventist leaders had with the army. Spectrum magazine reported:
In October 1954 then Surgeon General George Armstrong sent a letter to Theodore
R. Flaiz, secretary of the General Conference Medical Department, in which he
noted that Lieutenant Colonel W. D. Tigertt, commanding officer of the medical unit
at Fort Detrick, had been invited 'to present to representatives of the Seventh-day
Adventist Conference a request for their assistance in the conduct of a study of the
highest importance to our nation's health. Only through the use of volunteers can the
necessary information be obtained.' [3] (emphasis supplied)
A warm reply from Doctor Flaiz was dated the following day. In that
letter he acknowledged receiving Gen. Armstrong's letter and hearing the
presentation by Col. Tigertt. Flaiz wrote:
We feel that if anyone should recognize a debt of loyalty and service for the many
courtesies and considerations received from the Department of Defense, we, as
Adventists, are in a position to feel a debt of gratitude for these kind considerations.
The type of voluntary service which is being offered to our boys in this research
problem offers an excellent opportunity for these young men to render a service
which will be of value not only to military medicine but to public health generally. I
believe I speak not only the sentiments of our administrative group in this office, but
also of our Adventist young men in the services, in observing that it should be
regarded as a privilege to be identified with the significant advanced step in clinical
research. [4] (emphasis supplied)
It is clear that the army's correspondence with the church portrayed this
joint venture as an important public health project which would yield "a
significant advanced step in clinical research." For a denomination that
prides itself for its emphasis on health, the opportunity to highlight their
"humanitarian" zeal may have been too good to pass up. TheAdventist
Review later explained why the army sought the help of Adventists in its
germ warfare program. The 1969 article states:
Adventist medical servicemen were known to be highly motivated for humanitarian
service. Thus the Seventh-day Adventist Church was approached to ascertain
whether this would be considered something an Adventist serviceman might be able
to volunteer for. After thorough study, the Medical Department of the General
Conference and the General Conference Committee agreed that this was
humanitarian service of the highest type, and that any Adventist serviceman might
feel free to volunteer.[5]
Colonel Dan Crozier, then commander of USAMRIID stated earlier that
"because of high principles and temperate living, Adventist men are more
nearly uniform in physical fitness and mental outlook. We find [Adventist]
soldiers to be cooperative and willing to serve."[6]
Adventists' good health and humanitarianism did not render them
immune to army flattery, according to Neil C. Livingston, a Seventh-day
Adventist living in Spokane, Washington who has researched and written
about Project Whitecoat. "They were flattered into this by the army," he
said. "It was a big snow job."
After church officials agreed that Adventist draftees could participate in
the research at Fort Detrick, Gen. Armstrong praised their belief in "the
benefit of all mankind." Livingston contends that "the real opinion of the
Army is that Seventh-day Adventists are the only ones dumb enough to
volunteer their youth for such a dangerous ... project."
Road to Biological Warfare Paved with Good Intentions
"...entirely...defensive...and thus humanitarian."
The potential dangers of Project Whitecoat, as well as its relationship to
offensive biological warfare are issues that were raised by several groups
during the 1960's. In 1962 the Canadian news
magazine Macleans reported:
Using human volunteers to test new chemical and biological agents is not without
risk. The English experiments have resulted in at least one death which was
discussed in the House of Commons. During the past ten years, in the American
program, it is0 reported that there have been at least three deaths, and some 715
cases of illness and injury of "varying intensity." The American volunteers are
recruited from the penitentiaries and the armed forces. Many of the human guinea
pigs in the latter group have been young Seventh-Day Adventists. Pacifists by
conviction, they prefer to engage in nonmilitant activities while in the army. [7]
Adventist church officials and the army insist that Project Whitecoat
volunteers were used solely in defensive biological warfare research, or in
the research of "infectious diseases" as they put it, and that USAMRIID
was completely partitioned from offensive biological research at Fort
Detrick. Army officials claim that Whitecoat volunteers contributed to the
development of vaccines for yellow fever, hepatitis A, anthrax and plague,
as well as still-experimental vaccines for tularemia, Q fever, and
Venezuelan equine encephalitis.[8]
Clark Smith, former Director of the (Adventist) National Service
Organization (NSO), a military chaplaincy department in the General
Conference, reported that from 1956 to 1969 USAMRIID had published 160
papers in the professional journals of many countries. The unit's research
is not classified and is freely available in any adequate medical library,
supposedly making Project Whitecoat a significant contributor in the fight
against infectious diseases around the world. [9]
The estimate of 160 research papers is misleading, however, in that this
pertains to all research done at USAMRIID between 1956 and 1969.
Project Whitecoat, a part of USAMRIID and the only program at Fort
Detrick to use human guinea pigs, produced only five published research
papers during the first twelve years of the project, and a total of 23 by the
time the project closed in 1973.[10] The facade of "public health research"
and "military medicine" was attempted by army and church officials but
failed to hold up. Even Smith departed from the "public health" nonsense
when he admitted:
[Project Whitecoat] goes back to the 1953-1954 period with the original concept for
study to determine the vulnerability of man to attack with biological weapons and to
test the efficacy of Q fever and tularemia vaccines.... [a concept carried forward to
1973].
It should be pointed out that since the published work of USAMRIID is freely
available, those working in the offensive field may utilize this information as any
other interested party might do. [A back door way of admitting the research benefited
the offensive field].
However, in the opinion of this study committee the work of the Adventist volunteers
in USAMRIID is entirely in the defensive area of biological warfare and thus
humanitarian in nature. The committee feels that the efforts and sacrifices of these
volunteers are perfectly proper for the Christian who wishes to enter this field.
(emphasis supplied) [He admits Adventists were involved in biological warfare
research].[11]
At this point the reasoning mind may have some difficulty reconciling
"humanitarian" with "biological warfare." The question arises now as it did
in the 60's: In what area of biological warfare should a Christian church
involve itself?
Recruiting the Lambs
"...good old Adventist salesmanship"
The Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia states: "Another example of
noncombatant heroism while in the service of their country is 'Operation
Whitecoat', a project involving medical experimentation, staffed entirely by
SDA volunteers.... " [12] (emphasis supplied) While that ratio may be due in
part to the USAMRIID's partiality to Adventist specimens, statements by
church officials and volunteers indicate the church was actively involved in
recruiting Adventist boys into the project.
Along with his above statements, NSO director Clark Smith stated that
Whitecoat "volunteers are recruited from military personnel during basic
and Advanced Individual Training at the U.S. Army Medical Training
Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas." [13] (emphasis supplied)
A 1963 Youth's Instructor article said that "during this period of training
the Adventist draftees are given information concerning Operation
Whitecoat. Two or three times each year the director of the project, Colonel
Dan Crozier, of Frederick, Maryland, and Elder J. R. Nelson, secretary of
the National Service Organization of the General Conference of Seventh-
day Adventists travel to Texas to interview possible volunteers for the
project." [14] (emphasis supplied)
"A friend of mine was attending Mount Ellis [Adventist] Academy in
Bozeman, Montana," Neil Livingston told The WINDS. "When he graduated
in 1957, he was recruited by NSO representatives..." into Project
Whitecoat.[15]
Whitecoat veteran Cesar Vega wrote, "I did have a little college
experience at La Sierra [Adventist] College. During that time I was told of
the experiment for the first time (it wasn't called the Whitecoat Project yet
and I was one of the very first to take part in the experiment).... Why I did it
I still don't know. I'm sure it was mostly peer pressure and good old
Adventist salesmanship." [16] (emphasis supplied)
Whitecoat veteran G. R. Bietz stated: "I don't recall how they recruited
us ... I remember a man from the conference, I can still see his face, but I
don't recall his name." [17](emphasis supplied)
An article in an Adventist periodical states: "A colonel and a
representative of the General Conference National Service Organization
appeared at a special meeting [of draftees] and talked about an unusual
medical research project and asked for volunteers." [18]
A General Conference man, along with a high official of the army, came to Fort Sam
Houston to seek volunteers for a secret government program called "Project
Whitecoat." It sounded like a good way to serve my country, and, after all, the
program was endorsed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. [19]
From the testimonies of church officials and draftees alike, it appears
the role the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists played in
Operation Whitecoat was not merely a passive sanctioning of church
member participation. It appears, rather, that they actively recruited for the
USAMRIID, acting in an adjunct capacity.
Were They Really Volunteers?
"The truth is, we were getting killed pretty good over there in Vietnam..."
The word "volunteer" runs throughout articles and documentation
surrounding Project Whitecoat and, indeed, those that participated did
"volunteer" for the project. After signing on, they remained free to withdraw
from the project at any time. In accordance with the 1947 Nuremberg Code,
Whitecoat volunteers were fully informed by competent physicians about
the possible effects each experiment could have on their bodies. After
becoming infected, volunteers were provided with excellent medical care
and, yet, in spite of apparent quality assurances, it's clear that it was
coercion that held the project together.
"The church had agreed with the government to convince these young
men they should do this so they don't have to go to Vietnam," Livingston
told the Associated Press in October [20]. It was the fear of facing combat
duty as field medics in Vietnam or Korea that kept Project Whitecoat flush
with new Adventist volunteers.
"We were told that if we did not volunteer we would receive combat duty
overseas," one volunteer told Livingston in a telephone interview. "I
volunteered for this experiment so I would not be sent overseas," wrote
Wilson Wynn, another volunteer. [21] "The truth is, we were getting killed
pretty good over there in Vietnam .... There's not too many of us
[Adventists], I would think, that wouldn't have gone to Vietnam if we hadn't
volunteered [for Whitecoat]," explained Whitecoat veteran Lester
Bartholomew in an interview with The WINDS. [22]
"Most of the men who took part were draftees who chose Whitecoat
rather than go to Korea or Vietnam", wrote John E. Keplinger, Chaplain
(COL.) AUS, Ret. [23]
Evidently, it was fear rather than "humanitarian ideals" that kept
Adventist's draftees in Project Whitecoat because as soon as the draft
ended, the project folded, apparently for want of "volunteers," "The
Whitecoat project was terminated in January 1973 with the end of the
draft," wrote former USAMRIID commanding officer Col. Dan
Crozier. [24](emphasis supplied)
Q Fever Battlefield Simulations at Dugway
"We were not told this was a 'germ warfare' project..."
Tom Kopko was an Adventist who was drafted into the Army
in 1954. He volunteered for Project Whitecoat and was among the first
group of Adventist servicemen "to servea highly classified experimental
germ warfare project conducted at Fort Dugway, Utah," according to a
statement he signed in 1989. [25] (emphasis supplied). "It sounded like a
good way to serve my country, and, after all, the program was endorsed by
the Seventh-day Adventist Church," he wrote. The project was a Q fever
experiment performed on human test subjects at the Dugway Proving
Ground where the Army conducts CBW testing. This is where many of the
first Project Whitecoat volunteers were sent.
Kopko and his fellow volunteers were separated into eight groups of
about ten soldiers each and transported to test locations about 25 miles out
on the Utah salt flat. They were made to sit in chairs situated at different
levels on a high wooden platform. Around them were cages of mice,
monkeys and guinea pigs. Just after midnight, when wind conditions were
right, the officers put on their gas masks and the test began. A cool mist
laden with the infectious Q fever virus was dispersed on the volunteers by
large fans or reportedly dropped from aircraft overhead. After becoming
infected, the soldiers were flown back to Fort Detrick for tests and
observation. Some soldiers did not go to Dugway to be exposed but,
instead, inhaled the Q fever virus from a face mask at Fort Detrick.
Kopko reported getting mildly sick while there were others who got
"deathly sick" from the experiment. "We had to pass by their rooms very
quietly because the slightest noise would drive them crazy," he wrote. One
of those was Cesar Vega, a Whitecoat volunteer from Riverside, California.
He said that he was fine for a week after being contaminated at Dugway,
but then came down with a terrible fever and lost consciousness. He awoke
two days later to find the medical staff had covered him with ice in attempts
to bring his fever down. He was sick for the next three weeks. The Q fever
experiments at Dugway were conducted at the beginning of Project
Whitecoat, while subsequent tests were done at the USAMRIID
headquarters at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
"We were not told this was a 'germ warfare' project as I understand it
really was," wrote Whitecoat veteran Harry V. Wiant, Jr., who participated
in the Dugway Q fever experiments. [26]
Experiments with Tularemia
After initial experiments with Q fever, Project Whitecoat moved on to a
host of other exotic diseases such as yellow fever, anthrax and tularemia,
all potentially fatal. Lester Bartholomew was a 20-year old Seventh-day
Adventist when he was drafted in the mid-sixties. He told The WINDS that
he volunteered for Project Whitecoat while in basic training at Fort Sam
Houston. After transferring to the Whitecoat unit at Fort Detrick, he
participated in three projects where he was infected with tularemia, black
plague and rabbit fever. During the first project he was infected by
breathing from a face mask. The next two were administered by injection.
Bartholomew said he became extremely ill, coming down with a fever of
106 degrees at one point. The medical staff packed him in ice and took
frequent blood samples. Bartholomew was hospitalized and recovered, but
experienced reoccurring fever and fatigue after being discharged.
Thomas Ford is another Whitecoat veteran who was infected with
tularemia. He, too, recovered after hospitalization, but after being
discharged, he experienced a relapse of "high fever, chills and malaise" as
well as "a chronic rapid heartbeat." [27]
About 2,300 Adventists were involved with Project Whitecoat between
1954 and 1973. The Veterans Administration has reportedly not recognized
any claims related to the program.
The Big Lie
"My primary objection to the Q fever project was that it was misrepresented
to us as a humanitarian undertaking, not germ warfare." Harry V. Wiant, Jr.
USAMRIID and the Seventh-day Adventist Church both have claimed
the research performed on Adventist volunteers was purely defensive and
yielded important vaccines and data. They have emphasized the
separation between the offensive and defensive aspects of biowarfare,
calling Project Whitecoat "the study of infectious diseases," a phrase that
carries a purely medical connotation. But is "defensive" and "offensive"
CBW research as separate as black and white? Isn't "germ warfare"
another way of saying "infectious disease warfare?"
The advent of Project Whitecoat in 1954 corresponded with the U.S.
Army's increasing reliance on CBW as a viable component of its overall
strategy. In 1959 the Army commissioned a public relations campaign code
named "Operation Blue Skies" that was intended to create a positive image
of CBW in the public mind. Alarmed by the trend, Wisconsin Congressman
Kastenmeir introduced a resolution reaffirming the U.S. policy since WWII
that this country would not use CBW first in military conflict. In a speech on
the floor he warned that the army was trying to reverse this policy. His
resolution failed, largely because of the active opposition of the
Departments of Defense and State.
Corresponding with the army's "Blue Skies" campaign was a series of
articles by Don A. Roth in the Youth's Instructor, an Adventist periodical, in
October 1963. Roth related the story of young army private Tom Kopko, a
Whitecoat volunteer, who had just boarded an army air transport headed
for Fort Dugway, Utah. While in his seat the young private thought back to
his basic training. Roth wrote:
The place was Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and he had nearly completed his post
induction basic training. A colonel and a representative of the General Conference
National Service Organization appeared at a special meeting and talked about an
unusual medical research project and asked for volunteers. He did not then quite
understand all of the fine details about the program, but he felt that he should join the
project. The full and complete answer to his queries gave him assurance that this
was a worthwhile undertaking. His patriotic blood surged through him as he
anticipated doing something of material benefit for his country. His name went on the
dotted line. [28]
When compared to Kopko's 1989 statement, it is clear this story was a
sanitized promotion of Adventist participation in CBW research. In a second
article Roth wrote:
The project simply involves medical experimentation. But as a result of this activity
the Army Medical Service has made material advances in the development of
suitable methods of prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. As these
studies reach completion the information gained is reported directly to the medical
profession of the United States. Thus all citizens benefit from the program, not only
members of the armed forces. [29]
However, some army physicians apparently had more scruples than the
Seventh-day Adventist Church as to the possible implications of "medical
experimentation." This led USAMRIID commander Col. Tigertt, in an article
published in Military Medicine the same year, to criticize physicians who
balked because of the moral implications. He wrote:
What is surprising is that many physicians have refused to deal with the [research]
problem. They explain their apathy by stating that ethics prohibit their participation in
any endeavor, the derivatives of which might be used to produce suffering or cause
loss of life.... Such attitudes, whether fully developed or not, cannot be ignored
because they seriously hamper efforts to get appropriate investigations under
way. [30] (emphasis supplied)
This apparent "apathy" targeted by Col. Tigertt was caused by that
Hippocratic oath which says:
I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never
with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer poison to anybody
when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. (emphasis supplied)
Perhaps the Code of Ethics in Wartime of the World Medical Association
also dampened research enthusiasm by stating: "It is deemed unethical for
doctors to weaken the physical and mental strength of a human being
without therapeutic justification and to employ scientific knowledge to
imperil health or destroy life." [31] (emphasis supplied)
Was this the same Col. Tigertt, so eager to subvert the oath to "do no
harm," the one who swept Adventists off their feet by offering the
opportunity to participate "in the conduct of a study of the highest
importance to our nation's health?" It was and, yet, the "humanitarian"
veneer is so thin that this program's fangs protrude at almost every point.
A Nerve Gas Accident and More Lies
Five years after the Col. Tigertt and Youth's Instructor articles appeared,
uncomfortable questions arose over CBW and its support from "medical
research." This began with an apparent accident at the Dugway Proving
Grounds, the same installation where Project Whitecoat volunteers were
infected with the Q fever virus.
On March 24, 1968 the Associated Press reported that on March 13 a
mist of lethal nerve gas "was blown 30 miles from a top-secret army
chemical warfare test area ... killing 6,400 sheep in western Utah's Skull
Valley." [32]
The accident may have served to awaken some people about the
potentially devastating effects of CBW. Almost a year later, NBC's First
Tuesday ran a segment on the topic of CBW. The program showed the
effect of various agents on animals, and then interviewed a young Seventh-
day Adventist man who had been a Project Whitecoat volunteer.
In July, 1969 CBS's 60 Minutes examined the subject of CBW. Again a
young Project Whitecoat volunteer was interviewed. Evidently, the news
media wasn't buying the "we're only involved in defensive research" line.
This troubled the Adventist leadership, which responded with two articles in
the Adventist Review defending the church's participation in Project
Whitecoat. The article in the March 20, 1969 issue reads:
The United States Government decided that as soon as a definitive treatment could
be developed for a disease, the findings would be given wide publicity in medical
journals around the world. This publicity would effectively remove that particular
disease from the potential arsenal of biological warfare. At the same time it would
also spread medical knowledge on treatment worldwide, so that those presently
afflicted by that particular disease could be helped.
The author of the Review article defends the research conducted at
USAMRIID on the premise that as treatments are developed for a particular
disease, it would be removed from the potential arsenal of biological
warfare. Thus non-combatants and the Adventist Church at large would
help eradicate biological warfare by participating in the defensive research
at USAMRIID, according to the Review. Perhaps this author also had some
swamp land and a bridge to sell.
Project Whitecoat Essential to Offensive
Biowarfare
A Spectrum magazine article invites a far different
conclusion, one that suggests that Project Whitecoat has actually served to
expand the CBW arsenal. Martin Turner wrote in 1970:
As we have already seen, it is not certain that the existence of an effective treatment
or vaccine for a disease is sufficient to ensure its removal "from the potential arsenal
of biological warfare." In fact, such treatment must exist for the disease to be
included in that arsenal. (emphasis supplied)
The U.S. Army learned well in World War I, a war that produced over a
million casualties from gas weapons alone, that any unforeseen shift in the
wind brings your agent right back on your own men. Biological warfare is
the same. An army's leadership would be criminally negligent to use a
biological agent anywhere near their own personnel unless bio-
countermeasures like vaccines were logistically in place. Launching CB
weapons without these would be the same as shooting one's self in the
foot, except on a much larger and deadlier scale.
The value of "defensive" measures such as vaccines to a CBW
offensive was underscored by microbiologist Ivan Malek who said, "In the
case of intended microbiological attack it is possible to prepare one's own
personnel, for instance, by vaccination against selected microorganisms,
so that they would not be seriously endangered when entering the infected
area." [33] In other words, before launching anthrax at the enemy, our
soldiers would be inoculated with vaccines which may have been tested on
Project Whitecoat volunteers at USAMRIID.
Martin Turner confirmed this with Project Whitecoat commander Col.
Crozier, who admitted the integral role USAMRIID played in the offensive
CBW mission. Turner wrote:
The medical unit furnishes the offensive research laboratory with vaccines
developed through experiments on Whitecoat volunteers. Colonel Crozier
acknowledged that these vaccines are indispensable to the work of the researchers
in the offensive area and that they would have to develop the vaccines themselves if
the medical service did not. He saw no ethical problem, however, and explained that
"we are engaged only in the study of infectious diseases and we can't help what use
others may make of our work. I have no problem at all reconciling my work here with
medical ethics, none at all." (emphasis supplied)
The fuzzy line dividing the apparent "offensive" and "defensive" sides of
germ warfare all but disappears, leaving even casual observers to conclude
that they are one and the same. This was the conclusion of Dr. Malek who
said:
One of the characteristic features of biological weapons is that it is difficult to
distinguish work done purely for defensive ends from that which is mainly offensive
....That is why military establishments working on the development of these weapons
do it mostly under the label of defense. [34] (emphasis supplied)
Turner also quoted from CBW expert Elinor Langer who said:
With few exceptions, such as development of detection and protective equipment,
little CBW research can be accurately described as defensive.... Because of the
nature of chemical and biological weapons, research even in seemingly 'pure' areas,
such as the development of vaccines, has at least equal implications for offensive
and defensive use. [35]
Perhaps the clearest evidence pointing to the true mission of Project
Whitecoat may be found in an army CBW manual which states clearly that
"CB defense is a prerequisite to attack capability." [36]
While doing research for the Spectrum article, Turner interviewed
Congressman Richard McCarthy who was an opponent of CBW in the late
sixties. Turner wrote of McCarthy:
At a conference on CBW in December [1969] he stated that he was convinced by his
investigation that Project Whitecoat was being used for offensive rather than
defensive purposes. "The whole thrust of it in its essential conception was a
deterrent one, an offensive one, that we threaten to use a disease on somebody else
if they use it on us. Now what they have done of a defensive nature is minimal and
they even admit it themselves. We don't have any measures to inoculate the
American people against this kind of germ warfare.... My knowledge of [Project
Whitecoat], and I base that on the statements made by very responsible people, is
that it is offensive not defensive and that the Seventh-day Adventists are being
duped." (emphasis supplied)
Whitewash, Stonewall and Lie, Lie, Lie
On November 27, 1969, the Adventist Review printed an interview with
(Adventist) National Service Organization director Clark Smith. Smith's
comments echoed the statements made in the Review article of March 20
that not only defended church participation in Project Whitecoat but, in so
many words, defended the entire CBW program at Fort Detrick. Smith's
apparent damage control was strangely absent of the slightest open
mindedness toward the charge that Project Whitecoat might be aiding
offensive capability in some way. Absent was even the slightest
disapproval towards the development of germ weapons that he conceded
were being developed at Fort Detrick. It is apparent that the church
leadership lacked any sort of healthy distrust of the government's secret
germ warfare program.
In his defense of Project Whitecoat, Smith relied heavily on a
Clintonesque legal definition of defensive and offensive research at Fort
Detrick, i.e., USAMRIID and offensive research were under different
commands and in completely separate buildings on the base. He said the
only connection between the two was "a piece of experimental equipment
costing in excess of a million dollars" that they shared, and he almost
praised the "financial prudence" of the army for not duplicating this
expenditure.
Smith also asserted that USAMRIID facilities were "open" to any visitor
"with a purpose" and that its research findings were released to the public,
whereas the offensive research unit was enclosed behind a fence, open
only to those with the proper clearance, its findings classified. All clerical
paperwork connected with Project Whitecoat was completed by Adventist
officials "so that there is nothing secretive about the entire project," Smith
claimed. [37] Smith criticized the "current agitation" of those who questioned
the church's contribution to CBW research, scolding them over "the
importance of getting the facts and getting them straight."
It is quite clear that if Seventh-day Adventists believed their leadership,
they didn't get the facts straight. Their leaders failed to reveal the cozy
relationship between defensive and offensive CBW research which has
been evidenced by qualified experts. When questions arose within the
denomination, the General Conference appointed a committee to
investigate. In 1969 this committee went to then USAMRIID commander
Col. Dan Crozier who assured them that Project Whitecoat was purely
defensive. Col. Crozier even went so far as to claim that "no serviceman
has ever received any vaccine until he and some of his staff of researchers
had tried it in their own bodies for any untoward effects," a preposterous
falsehood Smith passed on to church congregations with a straight face.
Instead of investigating further, the committee stopped with their
interview with Col. Crozier and issued the conclusion that "the work of the
Adventist volunteers in USAMRIID is entirely in the defensive area of
biological warfare and thus humanitarian in nature." It is the opinion of
some Adventists that this is the conclusion the church leadership sought. In
other words, it was a whitewash.
Needless to say, the separation between the two CBW programs was
not as airtight as the church led its members to believe. Whitecoat veteran
Tom Kopko, in his 1989 statement, said that the Q fever experiments he
participated in were "secret" or classified and hidden from the public, just
as the offensive program was. "We were ordered not to say anything for ten
years," he said. In fact, all Adventist volunteers in Project Whitecoat had to
receive a "secret" security clearance before going "on project."
Whitecoat veteran Lester Bartholomew told The WINDS that he had to
wait for five months before receiving his security clearance. He and one
other Adventist were then assigned to work in building 427 which housed
the virology division of the offensive CBW research unit, a "hot area"
requiring a top secret clearance. This was his "duty station" between
projects. Bartholomew said that his job was to ship the "bad stuff," glass
vials containing biological agents, to military posts around the world
including Fort Dugway, Utah and Guam which was a supply staging area
for the Vietnam War. Bartholomew suspects much of the "bad stuff" he
packaged and shipped was used in Vietnam. At one point, a virology staffer
told him that if he dropped the two vials he was handling, he would "wipe
out the state of Maryland."
Bartholomew realized that Project Whitecoat was really offensive in
nature when he was "on project." In the clinic he spent an entire week
before a box that flashed lights and numbers, requiring him to do quick
calculations to test his mental reflexes. The tests were repeated after he
had been infected with tularemia. At one point, Bartholomew asked one of
the people administering the test what it was all about. "Well, if we've got
the enemy sick, we can tell how it will effect them," was the response.
"Since then, I tell you what, I don't trust the government and I don't trust the
church because they both lied to me," Bartholomew told The WINDS.
Why the Seventh-day Adventist Church?
The Seventh-day Adventist Church places great emphasis on health,
perhaps more than any other Christian denomination. Its system of
hospitals and clinics can be found in many countries, and it is proud of its
achievements in medical research and health education. Adventist
teachings warn against the use of alcohol, tobacco and flesh meats, and
abstinence from these are generally required for church membership.
Historically, the church has anticipated a threat to their religious liberties
from the circles of government, making even greater the following
dichotomy: how does a Christian church that places such strong emphasis
on health, that anticipates a threat from government, be found at the
forefront of a germ warfare research program in partnership with the
government?
"It seemed like they were just trying to get along with the government
and stroke the government so they wouldn't have any problems," Lester
Bartholomew told The WINDS. "As a church we really want to get along
with you, we don't want to be known as a cult, and so we provide you with
guinea pigs," was the church's reasoning.
Other Adventists point to the mid-fifties when this shift occurred in the
thinking of Adventist leadership. The church historically remained separate
from the other Christian denominations, but changed that stance when it
joined the Evangelical conferences of 1955-56. This move into the
ecumenical movement coincided with the advent of Project Whitecoat, both
a result of the church's quest for acceptance in the mainstream.
"No other church would have gotten away with this," Neil Livingston told
The WINDS. He points to court cases in the 70's and 80's establishing that
"the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the most centralized of all major
Christian denominations in this country."[33] Livingston asserts that the
church is hierarchical rather than congregational, with power flowing from
the top down rather than the other way around. This made Adventist
leaders in Takoma Park, Maryland useful agents to military brass in nearby
Frederick and Washington. Centralized church government gave NSO
officials the leverage they needed to recruit Adventist boys into Project
Whitecoat. "Other denominations would have never tolerated this type of
outside interference" from church leaders, said Livingston, citing the loose,
congregational type structure of other Protestant denominations.
Livingston also cited the Adventist educational system's impact on the
church culture as another reason for their usefulness to the army. "From
the time these youngsters enter high school, they are away from home," he
said. Many Adventist children go away to church boarding school and then
to college where they live in dormitories. "The church has them from a
young age ... and this has caused them to look at the leadership with awe,"
thus making them more vulnerable to suggestions from the top as
happened with Project Whitecoat.
Responsibility
Project Whitecoat ended 25 years ago with the end of the draft. It would
seem that time has relegated this subject to the "case closed" file, a
footnote to the Vietnam era and the Cold War. This may be so, but it still
provides an interesting lesson on how the Christian churches in the United
States have sold out to the ruling powers behind the scenes. Project
Whitecoat was only one step on that road upon which the Adventist church
and its fellow Protestants have traveled far. It may be safe to say they have
reached the end of that road -- the end of their usefulness to those in
power.
Another reason Project Whitecoat remains worthy of examination is the
issue of responsibility, from which no person or church can escape. Even
though a biological weapons convention (BCW) was signed in 1972, it
lacks verification and enforcement and permits "defensive" research. This
research speeds along, producing such nightmare weapons as Israel's
"ethnic bullet" that targets only the Arab genetic structure. Bio-technologies
such as these are the cutting edge, and how much of it builds upon the
research done at USAMRIID prior to 1973?
There are enormous stockpiles of an aging generation of CBW
ordinance, much of it produced during the heyday of Project Whitecoat.
This ordinance is now unstable, as are the world's political structures. Only
one or a number of calamities working together could release a deadly
pestilence. The Seventh-day Adventist Church, because of its phony
pretense to good health and good works, would share a large portion of the
curse such a disaster would bring.
The issues surrounding CBW are myriad. There are moral issues at
stake over the manipulation of life forms for the purpose of mass killing.
There are the issues of when to use them if they are available. There are
issues over compensation to its victims, both civilian and military. All of
these continue to remain unsettled, as are the mysterious illnesses and
deaths surrounding several Whitecoat veterans and, more recently,
thousands of Gulf War veterans.
Hypocrisy
The issues that loom larger than everything else is the spectre of
hypocrisy, the weightiest crime in the cosmic scales. Some may see no
issue; Adventists merely traded the battlefield for a research laboratory.
While this may be true for those who believe in war, it is not true for
Seventh-day Adventists who historically refused to participate in war. In
1864 their General Conference wrote to Michigan governor Austin Blair
stating the Adventists take the Bible as their guide and "are unanimous in
their views that its teachings are contrary to the spirit and practice of war. ...
Hence our people have not felt free to enlist into the service."
The following year their General Conference issued a statement which
declared that Adventists "acknowledge the justice of rendering tribute,
custom, honor, and reverence to the civil power, as enjoined in the New
Testament. While we thus cheerfully render to Caesar the things which the
Scriptures show to be his, we are compelled to decline all participation in
acts of war and bloodshed, as being inconsistent with the duties enjoined
upon us by our divine Master toward our enemies and toward all mankind."
This is the true meaning of "conscientious objector" -- one who refuses
to participate in war on grounds of conscience, but Adventists stretched this
meaning over the years to permit service as field medics and Whitecoat
volunteers, even though the Army field manual clearly stated that "the
mission of the medical service in a theatre of operations is to contribute to
the success of the military effort." [38] Thus, by maintaining a benevolent
exterior and while purchasing peace from the government, Adventists
abstained from having to kill a few of the enemy on the battlefield in favor of
assisting in the killing of potential millions. This is worthy of our strongest
condemnation. We will borrow Martin D. Turner's closing paragraphs in
the Spectrum article where he wrote:
A conscience that is sensitive to the dangers of coffee and wedding rings, but fails to
be concerned with the moral implications of participation in biological warfare
research, and in war itself, must seem paradoxical to a great many thinking people.
[Then Turner quotes Dr. Malek:]
The guardians of the Adventist Church ... are content with a morality of form without
substance, one in which the arts of disease can be presented as the healing arts,
and in which germ warfare can be embraced in pious obedience to divine injunction
against death. [39]
Notes:
1. Adventists debate church role in Vietnam-era warfare research, David Dishneau,
Associated Press, October 8, 1998.
2. All Things Considered, National Public Radio, October 13, 1998.
(Requires RealAudio player).
3. PROJECT WHITECOAT, Martin D. Turner, Spectrum magazine, Summer, 1970.
4. ibid.
5. PROJECT WHITECOAT, Adventist Medics in America volunteer to Serve
Humanity, Adventist Review, March 20, 1969
6. OPERATION WHITECOAT (part II), Don A. Roth, The Youth's Instructor, October
15, 1963.
7. PSYCHOCHEMICAL WEAPONS, Sydney Katz, Associate Editor of Macleans, April
21, 1962.
8. see reference 1.
9. PROJECT WHITECOAT, An Interview with CLARK SMITH, Director of the National
Service Organization, Adventist Review, November 27, 1969.
10. see reference 3.
11. see reference 9.
12. Seventh-Day Adventist Encyclopedia, Second Revised Edition, Art.
"Noncombatancy."
13. see reference 9.
14. see reference 6.
15. Letters and statements related to Project Whitecoat obtained from Neil C. Livingston
who contributed some of his research to this report.
16. Letter from Cesar Vega dated 10-12-89 (ref. 15).
17. Telephone interview with G. R. Bietz, 11-9-89 (ref. 15).
18. OPERATION WHITECOAT (part I), Don A. Roth, The Youth's Instructor, October 8,
1963.
19. Statement by Whitecoat veteran Thomas Kopko, signed October 10, 1989 (ref. 15).
20. See reference 1.
21. Letter from Wilson Wynn dated 10-12-89 (ref. 15).
22. Lester Bartholemew of Oregon in phone interview with The WINDS, 10-19-98.
23. Letter from John E. Keplinger, Chaplain (COL.) AUS, Ret. dated 10-12-89 (ref. 15).
24. Letter from Colonel Dan Crozier, USA MC, Ret.CommandingOfficer, USAMRIID
[Project Whitecoat] dated 11-7-89 (ref. 15).
25. See reference 19.
26. Letter from Harry V. Wiant, Jr. dated 11-15-89 (ref. 15).
27. See reference 1.
28. See reference 18.
29. See reference 6.
30. W. D. Tigertt, Status of Medical Research Effort, Military Medicine, pp. 142, 143,
(February 1963) in Turner (ref. 3).
31. World Medical Association, Code of Ethics in Wartime (New York: 1956) in Turner
(ref. 3).
32. Associated Press as printed in the Newark Sunday News, Sec. 1, March 24, 1968.
33. Dr. Ivan Malek quoted by Stephen Rose (editor), CBW: Chemical and Biological
Warfare (Boston: Beacon Press 1969), p. 124. in Turner (ref. 3).
34. ibid.
35. Elinor Langer, Chemical and Biological Warfare, Science 155, 174-179 and 299-305
(January 13 and 20, 1969) in Turner (ref. 3).
36. United States Army Field Manual FM 101-140, Armed Forces Doctrine for Chemical
and Biological Weapons Employment (1962), p.10.
37. See references 3 and 9.
38. Army Field Manual FM 8-10, Medical Service Theatre of Operations.
39. Reference 3, Turner also quotes from reference 33 in final paragraph.
Written 11/08/98
http://www.apfn.org/thewinds/1998/11/project_whitecoat.html




WWII Horror Files: Unit 731
MELISSA JULY 26, 2013 2
At the dawn of World War II, although biological
and chemical weapons had been used previously in warfare, little was known of precisely how they worked on
the human body. Curious, certain Japanese researchers in its army unit 731 conducted a series of indescribably
cruel experiments testing the limits of the human body when subjected to harsh conditions, poisonous
substances and lethal diseases.
History of Unit 731
Building from the ashes, literally, of a previous program, the Epidemic Prevention and Water
Purification Department of the Kwantung Army (Unit 731 for short) was authorized in 1936. Bases
were established at various places in China (occupied by Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese
War), including at Pingfang and Hsinking.
Referring to their victims as maruta, meaning logs, the researchers experimented on, apparently,
anyone they could get their hands on: Chinese, Russians, Koreans, Mongolians, Pacific Islanders,
other South East Asians and even a few American prisoners of war all fell victim to the doctors at the
camps.
Taking the scientific method to new lows, the researchers in unit 731 conducted a variety of
experiments:
Effects of Lethal Diseases
Victims were purposely infected with fatal, contagious diseases like the bubonic plague so
researchers could learn exactly how the diseases affected the human body; because they feared that
decomposition (which begins immediately once a person dies) might corrupt tissues, they dissected
their victims alive. Likewise, because they worried that drugs might blemish their findings, the victims
were given no anesthetic. Rather, they were vivisected while fully conscious of what was happening.
Limb Amputation
The scientists wanted to learn the limits of the human body, and, so, conducted a number of tests on
their victims arms and legs. Sometimes, the limbs were frozen and thawed in order to study how
frostbite and gangrene developed. At other times, limbs were cut off and sewn back onto the other
side of the body. In a few experiments, when the limbs were removed, researchers just observed the
loss of blood.
Sundry Other Nefarious Tests
Many victims had all or part of their organs removed, and some even had organs detached, then re-
attached, in unique ways nature never intended. Experiments were also conducted with high
pressure, poisonous chemical exposure, centrifuges, burning, blood infusions from animals, burying
and x-rays. Of course, since the purpose of these tests was to determine how much a body could
withstand, the experiments would continue until the test subject was dead.
It is not known how many victims fell prey to these types of tests. However, estimates of the deaths at
Pingfang (called by some the Auschwitz of the East) range from 3,000 to 12,000. Victims included
women and men, as well as children and babies.
Biological Weapons Testing
One of the fruits of unit 731s labor was the development of bombs capable of delivering anthrax and
the bubonic plague; these were tested in various places throughout China. In addition, fleas infected
with the plague were dropped from airplanes in Manchuria as well as the Chinese cities of Changde
and Ningbo. Furthermore, ponds and wells were seeded with typhoid, cholera and dysentery.
Estimates of Chinese dead from these various experiments go as high as 200,000.
Attacks on the United States
In late 1944 and early 1945, the Japanese lofted thousands of incendiary balloons across the Pacific
with the intention of starting massive forest fires on the West Coast. Luckily, only a few landed,
causing nearly no damage (although six people died when a child inadvertently set one off). It has
often been speculated that these balloons were, at least in part, an attempt to determine the viability
of using balloons to send plague-infected rats and fleas across the Pacific to the U.S.
The balloon idea was rejected, but the lure of using biological weapons remained. In fact, to thwart an
American planned offensive on Saipan in the Mariana Islands in 1944, the Japanese loaded a
submarine with biological weapons to be deployed in the battle. It sank before the weapons could be
unleashed.
Next up was Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night, a plan that involved filling planes with plague-
infected fleas and having kamikazes crash them into American assets in San Diego (home of a large
air base and major naval repair yard). The attack was set for September 22, 1945. It is unknown if the
plan was ever viable, since Japans surrender on September 2, 1945, following the nuclear bomb
attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, rendered such a biological attack moot.
Cover Up
At the end of the war, unit 731 scientists destroyed much of the evidence of the program. According to
reports, however, some infected test animals were released; it is believed that at least 30,000 people
died from the plague in the Pingfang area within the first three years after the war.
Like the German rocket scientists and engineers who were folded into military and other
governmental programs at the end of World War II through Operation Paperclip, unit 731s scientists
were given immunity from prosecution and their atrocities were covered-up in exchange for exclusive
access to their findings.
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Bonus Facts:
While the experiments done by these researchers were horrific, a small amount of good did come of it. For
instance, with the frostbite experiments, they discovered the best known treatment for condition rather than rub
the effected area, immerse it in warm water (between 100-120F). Not much consolation to the victims, but
something at least
By some accounts, the atrocities committed by the Japanese researchers in China were not limited to unit 731s
scientists. In 1995, a Japanese doctor told Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times that, in 1942 as a medical
student, he and his colleagues traveled to China where they practiced vivisection, amputation and other
operations on Chinese victims before euthanizing them.
An often forgotten bit of WWII history is that Japan engaged in significant operations along the West Coast of the
United States. In 1941 and 1942, nearly a dozen Japanese submarines harried American ships up and down the
coast from the Baja peninsula to the Aleutian Islands. In fact, the Ellwood Oil Field near Santa Barbara,
California, as well as Fort Stevens, Oregon, were each bombed on February 23 and June 21-22, 1942,
respectively.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/wwii-horror-files-unit-731/

During World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly
experiments on thousands ofconcentration camp prisoners without their consent.
Unethical medical experimentation carried out during the Third Reich may be divided into three
categories. The first category consists of experiments aimed at facilitating the survival
of Axis military personnel. In Dachau, physicians from the German air force and from the
German Experimental Institution for Aviation conducted high-altitude experiments, using a low-
pressure chamber, to determine the maximum altitude from which crews of damaged aircraft
could parachute to safety. Scientists there carried out so-called freezing experiments using
prisoners to find an effective treatment for hypothermia. They also used prisoners to test various
methods of making seawater potable.
The second category of experimentation aimed at developing and testing pharmaceuticals and
treatment methods for injuries and illnesses which German military and occupation personnel
encountered in the field. At the German concentration camps
of Sachsenhausen,Dachau, Natzweiler, Buchenwald, andNeuengamme, scientists tested
immunization compounds and sera for the prevention and treatment of contagious diseases,
including malaria, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and infectious hepatitis.
The Ravensbrueck camp was the site of bone-grafting experiments and experiments to test the
efficacy of newl
y developed sulfa (sulfanilamide) drugs. At Natzweiler and Sachsenhausen, prisoners were
subjected to phosgene and mustard gas in order to test possible antidotes.
The third category of medical experimentation sought to advance the racial and ideological
tenets of the Nazi worldview. The most infamous were the experiments of Josef
Mengele at Auschwitz. Mengele conducted medical experiments on twins. He also directed
serological experiments on Roma (Gypsies), as did Werner Fischer at Sachsenhausen, in order to
determine how different "races" withstood various contagious diseases. The research of August
Hirt at Strasbourg University also intended to establish "Jewish racial inferiority."
Other gruesome experiments meant to further Nazi racial goals were a series of sterilization
experiments, undertaken primarily at Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck. There, scientists tested a
number of methods in their effort to develop an efficient and inexpensive procedure for the mass
sterilization of Jews, Roma, and other groups Nazi leaders considered to be racially or
genetically undesirable.
RELATED ARTICLES
Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race
Concentration Camp System: In Depth
Euthanasia Program
Josef Mengele
Copyright United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
ENCYCLOPEDIA LAST UPDATED: JUNE 10, 2013
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