Fort Detrick—formerly Camp Detrick—is a United States Army medical installation located in Frederick, Maryland. It is home to the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (MRMC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).
Starting during the second world war, Fort Detrick became the site of intensive biological warfare research using various pathogens; there is a building on the base which was sealed with thick polyethylene sheets after an accidental release of anthrax spores. On Veterans Day, November 11, 1969, President Richard Nixon asked the Senate to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons. Nixon assured Fort Detrick its research would continue. On November 25, 1969, Nixon signed an executive order outlawing offensive biological research in the United States. Since then any research done at Fort Detrick has been purely defensive in nature, such as treatments for infections.
The quote from the study:
Many experiments that tested various biological agents on human subjects, referred to as Operation Whitecoat, were carried out at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in the 1950's. The human subjects originally consisted of volunteer enlisted men. However, after the enlisted men staged a sitdown strike to obtain more information about the dangers of the biological tests, Seventh-Day Adventists who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans' affairs December 8, 1994 John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman.*
United States Army medical facilities | Biological warfare | United States Army posts
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