BioW Q fever, and other things

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_Test_Center


>>>Between its opening in 1962 and 1973 the Deseret Test Center was at the helm of Project 112,[4][5] a military operation aimed at evaluating chemical and biological weapons in differing environments.[5] The test began in the fall of 1962 and were considered "ambitious" by the Chemical Corps; the tests were conducted at sea, in Arctic environments and in tropical environments.[2] Tests were aimed at human, plant and animal reaction to the chemical and biological agents and were conducted in the United States, Liberia, Egypt, South Korea and Okinawa.[2] In total, Deseret planned 134 chemical and biological weapons tests, of those 46 were carried out and 62 were canceled.>>>[5]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_Proving_Ground


>>>>The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of weapons tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:

“ ... Dugway Proving Ground is a military testing facility located approximately 80 miles from Salt Lake City. For several decades, Dugway has been the site of testing for various chemical and biological agents. From 1951 through 1969, hundreds, perhaps thousands of open-air tests using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in human, animals, and plants were conducted at Dugway... It is unknown how many people in the surrounding vicinity were also exposed to potentially harmful agents used in open-air tests at Dugway

In March 1968, 6,249 sheep died in Skull Valley, an area nearly thirty miles from Dugway's testing sites. When examined, the sheep were found to have been poisoned by an organophosphate chemical. The sickening of the sheep, known as the Dugway sheep incident, coincided with several open-air tests of the nerve agent VX at Dugway. Local attention focused on the Army, which initially denied that VX had caused the deaths, instead blaming the local use of organophosphate pesticides on crops. Veterinary autopsies conducted on the dead sheep later definitively identified the presence of VX. The Army never admitted liability, but did pay the ranchers for their losses. On the official record, the claim was for 4,372 "disabled" sheep, of which about 2,150 were either killed outright by the VX exposure or were so critically injured that they needed to be euthanized on-site by veterinarians. Another 1,877 sheep were "temporarily" injured, or showed no signs of injury but were not marketable due to their potential exposure. All of the exposed sheep which survived the initial exposure were eventually euthanized by the ranchers, since even the potential for exposure had rendered the sheep permanently unsalable for either meat or wool>>>


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_fever


Q fever has been described as a possible biological weapon.[18]

The United States investigated Q fever as a potential biological warfare agent in the 1950s with eventual standardization as agent OU. At Fort Detrick and Dugway Proving Ground human trials were conducted on Whitecoat volunteers to determine the median infective dose (18 MICLD50/person i.h.) and course of infection. As a standardized biological it was manufactured in large quantities at Pine Bluff Arsenal, with 5,098 gallons in the arsenal in bulk at the time of demilitarization in 1970.

Q fever is a category "B" agent.[19] It can be contagious and is very stable in aerosols in a wide range of temperatures. Q fever microorganisms may survive on surfaces up to 60 days.
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It opened when I clicked on cached:
http://project-112shad-fdn.com/trapline.htm


With more circumspection but no less diligence, the army tested the real diseases, exploding germ bombs on the test grids at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Initially, it tested psittacosis, brucellosis, tularemia, plague, and Q-fever. By 1954, the army added anthrax, San Joaquin Valley Fever (a hardy spore-forming fungus found in California's San Joaquin Valley), and Venezuelan equine encephalitis.

Jeanne McDermott, the 1984-85 Vannevar Bush Fellow in the Public Understanding of Technology and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of "The Killing Winds."
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From 1951 through 1969, hundreds perhaps thousands of open-air tests using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in human, animals, and plants were conducted at Dugway. For example, antigens produced by animals that had come in contact with Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis (VEE), a disease usually found in horses, were later found in animals around Dugway. Prior to the identification of these substances in the Dugway vicinity, VEE had only been identified in the rat population in Florida. Such a finding suggested that VEE had been used in the open-air tests at Dugway or within laboratories, and transferred to the nearby animal population.

IS MILITARY RESEARCH HAZARDOUS TO VETERANS' HEALTH? LESSONS SPANNING HALF A CENTURY, U.S. Senate, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, DC, December 8, 1994.
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Trying to keep tabs on the spread of biologicals released at Dugway the army maintained a series of data gathering stations at the perimeter of the post known as the trap line. The indigenous animal population and local weather patterns meandered across the test grids contaminated with deadly warfare agents at will, taking with them a legacy of disease to the surrounding desert.

Kenneth E. Knowlton, Sig C Met DPG 1959-61.
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"The Army found an epidemic of Q fever among Utah desert wildlife in 1959 and 1960, and said it was unsure whether the disease existed there naturally before it was used in Dugway tests". The incidents of Q fever was not reported to the State Health Department but they have recorded cases of Q fever among humans, all after the 1955 releases at Dugway Proving Ground.

Charles Piller, investigative journalist.


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