Vets blast SHAD study
Survey left out many sailors involved in chemical weapons tests, group says
By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Thursday Jul 5, 2007 6:29:56 EDT
SOURCE:
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/07/navy_shadtests_070704w/
A group of Navy veterans says that findings from a study of the health effects
of at-sea biological and chemical weapons testing on thousands of sailors 40
years ago are flawed because the study ignored those with the highest levels of
exposure.
The $3 million study, paid for by the Department of Veterans Affairs but
conducted by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy, took four years
to complete. It was commissioned after years of complaints from veterans that
the tests made them sick.
The Institute of Medicine is a private organization created by the federal
government to perform medical tests.
Findings from a medical records survey and questionnaire mailed to more than
6,000 sailors who were aboard 22 Navy ships and Army tugs during the tests cast
doubt on claims that exposure to the tests led to severe medical problems in
ensuing years.
The findings, released last month, found that participants had higher death
rates from cardiovascular disease and had higher self-reported rates of memory
loss, attention problems and neurodegenerative disorders than a group of sailors
who did not participate in Project SHAD, or Shipboard Hazard and Defense. But
scientists were unable to point to medical links between these problems and the
real and simulated chemical and biological weapons used during the tests.
Moreover, since participants also reported higher rates of medically
insignificant symptoms such as earlobe pain, scientists questioned whether some
of the discrepancies were caused by participants’ belief that something was
wrong with them.
But retired Cmdr. John Alderson, who served as a commanding officer of the five
Army light tugs — numbered 2080, 2081, 2085, 2086 and 2087 — that were a central
part of the tests, said the study was incomplete because it failed to include
many of the sailors who served on the tugs, at a test laboratory on Johnston
Island — a small island about 700 miles west of Pearl Harbor — and at a base
near Pearl Harbor where the weapons were mixed.
The study’s director confirmed Alderson’s claims but said he could not be sure
what effect the omission had on the findings because he did not know how many
people were excluded or the severity of the illnesses they reported.
“We got as many people on the light tugs as possible from the Defense
Department,” study director William Page said. “They didn’t have complete
rosters. We would have loved to have included the light tug personnel, but we
just couldn’t find [all of] them.”
Alderson estimated that more than 500 sailors served on the tugs during the
experiments. Neither he nor Page could say how many were included in the study,
but Page admitted that the majority of tug sailors were never contacted.
Extended exposure
John Olsen, who served on the tugs as an electronics technician second class in
1965, said the ships’ 13-man crews — and sometimes three monkeys kept above deck
— were exposed to a variety of chemical and biological agents on a daily basis
over three-month periods, while sailors on larger Navy ships included in the
study had much less frequent levels of exposure, sometimes only once or twice
overall, and were exposed to simulated chemical and biological agents.
The IOM report says tug crew members were exposed to a nerve agent, staph
bacteria and bacterial agents that could cause rabbit fever and Q fever.
Alderson said tug crew members were exposed to at least four other biological
weapons not mentioned in the findings, but he said he could not name them
because they are still classified.
A second veteran confirmed Alderson’s account, but asked not to be identified.
Although the tugs’ crews were required to stay inside during the tests, and
state-of-the-art paper filters and specially designed air conditioning systems
were used to protect the crews, the filters sometimes failed after they were
soaked with sea water. Sensors in the boats’ interior spaces periodically
detected trace amounts of biological and chemical agents, Olsen said.
After each test, the crews sprayed the tugs’ exterior surfaces with a
decontaminant, that, while thought to be safe at the time, has since been found
to be toxic, he said.
Another veteran said the study was flawed even among the crews of larger Navy
ships such as the destroyer Herbert J. Thomas and the dock landing ship Fort
Snelling.
Retired Cmdr. Norm LaChappelle, who served as technical project director for
Project SHAD, said the study failed to do aggressive outreach to participants.
He also said it did not distinguish between exposures to crew members who were
at different places on the ship.
“They didn’t differentiate between whether you were a deck hand or in an engine
room,” he said. “If you were on a ship, you were a participant,” he said.
SHAD background
The SHAD tests, which were classified until a few years ago, were conducted
between 1962 and 1973 to determine whether Navy crews could be protected from
chemical or biological attacks, Navy officials have said. Alderson said he
thinks the study had a more nefarious purpose: to determine how effective
American chemical and biological weapons could be against enemy navies.
The five tugs were sent to sail in a line formation that could be as long as 100
miles. Two Marine A-4 Skyhawks would then drop substances close to the first
ship. Scientists would measure readings on each ship to determine how far
weapons clouds would travel before they dispersed to levels that were
ineffective.
The larger ships had simulants blown aft from their bows by giant fans or had
them dropped from passing aircraft.
But even these simulants, such as E. coli and bacillus globigii, were later
found to be toxic.
Participants aboard the light tugs say they had clandestine meetings with
officers in San Francisco restaurants, were given hotel suites isolated from
other sailors, wore civilian clothes, served on tugs with no Navy markings and
were threatened with imprisonment if they talked about the tests with anyone
after they were completed.
That is one reason they say it took so long to notice problems, they said.
“Most of my skippers are dead from cancer or respiratory illnesses,” Alderson
said, before adding that since no study has been done on illness and mortality
rates of the group, he can only offer anecdotal evidence of medical problems
caused by the program. But he said that he developed severe allergies within
days after the first test. Since then, he said he has suffered from prostate
cancer and several skin cancers.
Olsen said he has also had health problems.
“I am one of the few survivors of something called massive malignant
hypertension,” Olsen said. “It is extremely rare. For white males, it is 1 in 10
million. My blood pressure went up over 300, top and bottom. I was in my early
40s.”
LaChappelle says he has no health problems that he believes are directly
traceable to the experiment, but he says he has received many phone calls from
participants who say the project ruined their health.
Bernard Edelman, deputy director for policy and government affairs for the
Vietnam Veterans of America, said sailors were given inoculations but that they
were not entered on the sailor’s medical records, meaning the sailors don’t know
what they received.
“We’re still trying to uncover the facts,” Edelman said. “As Yogi Berra said,
‘It ain’t over ’til it’s over.’”