Edgewood Arsenal

Veterans said for decades that they were used as test subjects and then abandoned. [1] Their case reached the federal courts, where the government did not deny the experiments happened. [2]

The Department of Veterans Affairs says that from 1955 to 1975 the Army Chemical Corps ran classified studies at Edgewood Arsenal. About 7,000 soldiers were exposed to more than 250 different chemicals, including nerve agents such as sarin, mustard agents, the incapacitant BZ, and LSD and PCP. The VA notes that long-term follow-up “was not planned”, and that a 2016 report to the Defense Department found no significant effects in subjects’ later health; the National Academies reviewed that report in 2018. [1]

In Vietnam Veterans of America v. CIA, the Ninth Circuit noted that “tens of thousands” of service members were exposed in chemical and biological experiments from World War I to the mid-1970s. In its 2016 amended opinion it agreed that the Army has an ongoing, enforceable duty to give former test subjects “newly acquired information” about their health. [2]

The CIA’s link is through MKNAOMI, its long joint project with the Army’s Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick. [3]