Editing Edgewood Arsenal human experiments (section)

==Aftermath==

===Government reports===
'''1982-85 IOM report'''<br>
The [[Institute of Medicine]] (IOM) published a three-volume report on the Edgewood research in 1982–1985, ''Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Chemical Agents''.<ref>''Possible Long-Term Health Effects of Short-Term Exposure to Chemical Agents'', Commission on Life Sciences. The [[National Academies Press]]. In three volumes:
* [http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=740&page=1 Vol. 1, "Anticholinesterases and Anticholinergics"] (1982).
* [http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9136&page=1 Vol. 2, "Cholinesterase Reactivators, Psychochemicals and Irritants and Vesicants] (1984)
* [http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9984&page=1 Vol. 3, "Final Report: Current Health Status of Test Subjects"] (1985)</ref>

The three volumes were:
*Vol. 1, "Anticholinesterases and Anticholinergics" (1982).
*Vol. 2, "Cholinesterase Reactivators, Psychochemicals and Irritants and Vesicants" (1984)
*Vol. 3, "Final Report: Current Health Status of Test Subjects" (1985)

The [[National Academy of Sciences]], which oversees the IOM, sent a questionnaire to all of the former volunteers that could be located, approximately 60% of the total. The lack of a detailed record hampered the investigation. The study could not rule out long-term health effects related to exposure to the nerve agents. It concluded that "Whether the subjects at Edgewood incurred these changes [depression, cognitive deficits, tendency to suicide] and to what extent they might now show these effects are not known". With regard specifically to BZ and related compounds, the IOM study concluded that "available data suggest that long-term toxic effects and/or delayed sequellae are unlikely".

'''2004 GAO report'''<br>
A [[Government Accounting Office]] report of May 2004, ''Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD Needs to Continue to Collect and Provide Information on Tests and Potentially Exposed Personnel'' (pp.&nbsp;1, 24), stated:

<blockquote>[In 1993 and 1994] we [...] reported that the Army Chemical Corps conducted a classified medical research program for developing incapacitating agents. This program involved testing nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psycho chemicals, and irritants. The chemicals were given to volunteer service members at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland; Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; and Forts Benning, Bragg, and McClellan. In total, Army documents identified 7,120 Army and Air Force personnel who participated in these tests.  Further, GAO concluded that precise information on the scope and the magnitude of tests involving human subjects was not available, and the exact number of human subjects might never be known.<ref>[http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04410.pdf ''Chemical and Biological Defense''], Government Accounting Office, May 2004, p. 24.</ref></blockquote>

===Safety debates===
The official position of the Department of Defense, based on the three-volume set of studies by the [[Institute of Medicine]] mentioned above, is that they "did not detect any significant long-term health effects on the Edgewood Arsenal volunteers".<ref name="mcm"/> The safety record of the Edgewood Arsenal experiments was also defended in the memoirs of psychiatrist and retired colonel [[James S. Ketchum|James Ketchum]], a key scientist:<ref>{{cite book|author1=Lynn C. Klotz|author2=Edward J. Sylvester|title=Breeding Bio Insecurity: How U.S. Biodefense Is Exporting Fear, Globalizing Risk, and Making Us All Less Secure|year=2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-44407-9|page=33}} citing {{cite book|author=James S. Ketchum |title=Chemical Warfare: Secrets Almost Forgotten, A Personal Story of Medical Testing of Army Volunteers with Incapacitating Chemical Agents During the Cold War (1955–1975)|location=Santa Rosa, CA|publisher=ChemBooks Inc.|year=2006|isbn=978-1-4243-0080-8|page=128}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Over a period of 20 years, more than 7,000 volunteers spent an estimated total of 14,000 months at Edgewood Arsenal. To my knowledge, not one of them died or suffered a serious illness or permanent injury. That adds up to 1,167 man-years of survival. Statistically, at least one out of a thousand young soldiers chosen at random might be expected to expire during any one-year period. By this logic, Edgewood was possibly the safest military place in the world to spend two months.}}

As late as 2014, information was incomplete; IOM could not conduct adequate medical studies related to similar former US biowarfare programs, because relevant classified documents had not been declassified and released.

{{blockquote|The committee's understanding is that additional, and potentially relevant, material on SHAD tests exists and remains classified. The IOM committee requested declassification of 21 additional elements from at least nine documents from DoD in August 2012. In January 2014, an additional request was made for release of multiple films made of Project SHAD tests. None of the requested materials were cleared for public release as of this writing (2016).<ref>[https://www.nap.edu/read/21846/chapter/4?term=declassification#28Assessing Health Outcomes Among Veterans of Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) (2016)] National Academies Press</ref>
}}

Even a book critical of the program, written by Lynn C. Klotz and Edward J. Sylvester, acknowledges that:

<blockquote>Unlike the CIA program, research subjects [at Edgewood] all signed informed consent forms, both a general one and another related to any experiment they were to participate in. Experiments were carried out with safety of subjects a principal focus. [...] At Edgewood, even at the highest doses it often took an hour or more for incapacitating effects to show, and the end-effects usually did not include full incapacitation, let alone unconsciousness. After all, the Edgewood experimenters were focused on disabling soldiers in combat, where there would be tactical value simply in disabling the enemy.<ref name="KlotzSylvester2009">{{cite book|author1=Lynn C. Klotz|author2=Edward J. Sylvester|title=Breeding Bio Insecurity: How U.S. Biodefense Is Exporting Fear, Globalizing Risk, and Making Us All Less Secure|year=2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-44407-9|page=33}}</ref></blockquote>

===Lawsuits===


The U.S. Army believed that legal liability could be avoided by concealing the experiments. However once the experiments were uncovered, the US Senate also concluded questionable legality of the experiments and strongly condemned them.{{blockquote|In the Army's tests, as with those of the CIA, individual rights were&nbsp;... subordinated to national security considerations; informed consent and follow-up examinations of subjects were neglected in efforts to maintain the secrecy of the tests. Finally, the command and control problems which were apparent in the CIA's programs are paralleled by a lack of clear authorization and supervision in the Army's programs.(S. Rep., at 411.[5])<ref>{{cite web|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1618740904845591949&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr|title=United States v. Stanley, 483 US 669 - Supreme Court 1987}}</ref>}}

In the 1990s, the law firm [[Morrison & Foerster]] agreed to take on a class-action lawsuit against the government related to the Edgewood volunteers. The plaintiffs collectively referred to themselves as the "Test Vets".

In 2009 a lawsuit was filed by veterans rights organizations [[Vietnam Veterans of America]], and [[Swords to Plowshares]], and eight Edgewood veterans or their families against CIA, the U.S. Army, and other agencies.  The complaint asked the court to determine that defendants' actions were illegal and that the defendants have a duty to notify all victims and to provide them with health care.  In the suit, ''Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al.'' Case No. CV-09-0037-CW, U.S.D.C. (N.D. Cal. 2009), the plaintiffs did not seek monetary damages.  Instead, they sought only declaratory and injunctive relief and redress for what they claimed was several decades of neglect and the U.S. government's use of them as human guinea pigs in chemical and biological agent testing experiments.

The plaintiffs cited:

* The use of troops to test nerve gas, psychochemicals, and thousands of other toxic chemical or biological substances.
* A failure to secure informed consent and other widespread failures to follow the precepts of U.S. and international law regarding the use of human subjects, including the 1953 Wilson Directive and the Nuremberg Code.
* A refusal to satisfy their legal and moral obligations to locate the victims of experiments or to provide health care or compensation to them
* A deliberate destruction of evidence and files documenting their illegal actions, actions which were punctuated by fraud, deception, and a callous disregard for the value of human life.

On July 24, 2013, United States District Court Judge Claudia Wilken issued an order granting in part and denying in part plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and granting in part and denying in part defendants' motion for summary judgment. The court resolved all of the remaining claims in the case and vacated trial. The court granted the plaintiffs partial summary judgment concerning the notice claim: summarily adjudicating in plaintiffs' favor, finding that "the Army has an ongoing duty to warn" and ordering "the Army, through the DVA or otherwise, to provide test subjects with newly acquired information that may affect their well-being that it has learned since its original notification, now and in the future as it becomes available". The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment with respect to the other claims.<ref name="Edgewoodvets">{{cite web |url=http://www.edgewoodtestvets.org/plaintiffs/ |title=''Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al.'' Case No. CV-09-0037-CW, U.S.D.C. (N.D. Cal. 2009) |date=August 7, 2013 |website=Edgewood Test Vets |publisher=Morrison & Foerster |access-date=October 1, 2013}}</ref>

On appeal in [[Vietnam Veterans of America et al. V. CIA et al|Vietnam Veterans of America v. Central Intelligence Agency]], a panel majority held in July 2015 that [[Army Regulation 70-25]] (AR 70-25) created an independent duty to provide ongoing medical care to veterans who participated in U.S. chemical and biological testing programs. The prior finding held that the Army has an ongoing duty to seek out and provide "notice" to former test participants of any new information that could potentially affect their health.<ref name="Edgewoodvet">{{cite web |url=https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1706233.html |title=Vietnam Veterans of America v. Central Intelligence Agency |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=June 30, 2015 |website=findlaw.com |access-date=May 20, 2016 }}</ref>