Editing Edgewood Arsenal human experiments (section)

===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>