he Ministry of Defence turned large parts of the
country into a giant laboratory to conduct a series
of secret germ warfare tests on the public.
A government report just released provides for the
first time a comprehensive official history of
Britain's biological weapons trials between 1940 and
1979.
Many of these tests involved releasing potentially
dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast
swaths of the population without the public being
told.
While details of some secret trials have emerged in
recent years, the 60-page report reveals new
information about more than 100 covert experiments.
The report reveals that military personnel were
briefed to tell any 'inquisitive inquirer' the
trials were part of research projects into weather
and air pollution.
The tests, carried out by government scientists at
Porton Down, were designed to help the MoD assess
Britain's vulnerability if the Russians were to have
released clouds of deadly germs over the country.
In most cases, the trials did not use biological
weapons but alternatives which scientists believed
would mimic germ warfare and which the MoD claimed
were harmless. But families in certain areas of the
country who have children with birth defects are
demanding a public inquiry.
One chapter of the report, 'The Fluorescent Particle
Trials', reveals how between 1955 and 1963 planes
flew from north-east England to the tip of Cornwall
along the south and west coasts, dropping huge
amounts of zinc cadmium sulphide on the population.
The chemical drifted miles inland, its fluorescence
allowing the spread to be monitored. In another
trial using zinc cadmium sulphide, a generator was
towed along a road near Frome in Somerset where it
spewed the chemical for an hour.
While the Government has insisted the chemical is
safe, cadmium is recognised as a cause of lung
cancer and during the Second World War was
considered by the Allies as a chemical weapon.
In another chapter, 'Large Area Coverage Trials',
the MoD describes how between 1961 and 1968 more
than a million people along the south coast of
England, from Torquay to the New Forest, were
exposed to bacteria including e.coli and bacillus
globigii , which mimics anthrax. These releases came
from a military ship, the Icewhale, anchored off the
Dorset coast, which sprayed the micro-organisms in a
five to 10-mile radius.
The report also reveals details of the DICE trials
in south Dorset between 1971 and 1975. These
involved US and UK military scientists spraying into
the air massive quantities of serratia marcescens
bacteria, with an anthrax simulant and phenol.
Similar bacteria were released in 'The Sabotage
Trials' between 1952 and 1964. These were tests to
determine the vulnerability of large government
buildings and public transport to attack. In 1956
bacteria were released on the London Underground at
lunchtime along the Northern Line between Colliers
Wood and Tooting Broadway. The results show that the
organism dispersed about 10 miles. Similar tests
were conducted in tunnels running under government
buildings in Whitehall.
Experiments conducted between 1964 and 1973 involved
attaching germs to the threads of spiders' webs in
boxes to test how the germs would survive in
different environments. These tests were carried out
in a dozen locations across the country, including
London's West End, Southampton and Swindon. The
report also gives details of more than a dozen
smaller field trials between 1968 and 1977.
In recent years, the MoD has commissioned two
scientists to review the safety of these tests. Both
reported that there was no risk to public health,
although one suggested the elderly or people
suffering from breathing illnesses may have been
seriously harmed if they inhaled sufficient
quantities of micro-organisms.
However, some families in areas which bore the brunt
of the secret tests are convinced the experiments
have led to their children suffering birth defects,
physical handicaps and learning difficulties.
David Orman, an army officer from Bournemouth, is
demanding a public inquiry. His wife, Janette, was
born in East Lulworth in Dorset, close to where many
of the trials took place. She had a miscarriage,
then gave birth to a son with cerebral palsy.
Janette's three sisters, also born in the village
while the tests were being carried out, have also
given birth to children with unexplained problems,
as have a number of their neighbours.
The local health authority has denied there is a
cluster, but Orman believes otherwise. He said: 'I
am convinced something terrible has happened. The
village was a close-knit community and to have so
many birth defects over such a short space of time
has to be more than coincidence.'
Successive governments have tried to keep details of
the germ warfare tests secret. While reports of a
number of the trials have emerged over the years
through the Public Records Office, this latest MoD
document - which was released to Liberal Democrat MP
Norman Baker - gives the fullest official version of
the biological warfare trials yet.
Baker said: 'I welcome the fact that the Government
has finally released this information, but question
why it has taken so long. It is unacceptable that
the public were treated as guinea pigs without their
knowledge, and I want to be sure that the Ministry
of Defence's claims that these chemicals and
bacteria used were safe is true.'
The MoD report traces the history of the UK's
research into germ warfare since the Second World
War when Porton Down produced five million cattle
cakes filled with deadly anthrax spores which would
have been dropped in Germany to kill their
livestock. It also gives details of the infamous
anthrax experiments on Gruinard on the Scottish
coast which left the island so contaminated it could
not be inhabited until the late 1980s.
The report also confirms the use of anthrax and
other deadly germs on tests aboard ships in the
Caribbean and off the Scottish coast during the
1950s. The document states: 'Tacit approval for
simulant trials where the public might be exposed
was strongly influenced by defence security
considerations aimed obviously at restricting public
knowledge. An important corollary to this was the
need to avoid public alarm and disquiet about the
vulnerability of the civil population to BW
[biological warfare] attack.'
Sue Ellison, spokeswoman for Porton Down, said:
'Independent reports by eminent scientists have
shown there was no danger to public health from
these releases which were carried out to protect the
public.
'The results from these trials_ will save lives,
should the country or our forces face an attack by
chemical and biological weapons.'
Asked whether such tests are still being carried
out, she said: 'It is not our policy to discuss
ongoing research.'