Earth Changes TV - Study Says UK Germ Warfare Experiments Were Safe

Study Says UK Germ Warfare Experiments Were Safe...03/24/00

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) - An independent inquiry into the impact of
secret chemical warfare experiments carrried out over Britain at the height
of the Cold War has concluded they posed no danger to public health, the
defence ministry said on Friday.

Large swathes of the UK were sprayed with chemicals in the 1950s and 1960s
in experiments designed to simulate a chemical or biological attack, and
since then doubts have been raised about the safety of the substances used.

But on Friday the Ministry of Defence published the results of an inquiry
set up last year under Cambridge University scientist Professor Peter
Lachmann, which it said showed the public had not been put at risk.

"The Ministry of Defence welcomes the main conclusion of the report that
there was no danger to public health arising from the release of zinc
cadmium sulphide as an air movement tracer in the trials," said junior
Defence Minister Baroness Symons in a statement.

"We are also reassured by the report's findings that, in the areas where
these trials took place, there is no evidence of increased incidence of
diseases associated with cadmium toxicity."

The trials, carried out by scientists from Britain's germ warfare research
centre at Porton Down, in Wiltshire, south west England, were aimed at
finding out how vulnerable the UK was to a chemical or biological attack.

To assess how far a cloud of chemical agents would travel the scientists
decided to disperse the chemical marker agent zinc cadmium sulphide. These
fluorescent particles could be traced and counted at numerous sampling
points.

Between 1953 and 1964 large quantities of the chemical were sprayed over
Britain from the ground and the air. The trials began in the south of
England but were later widened to cover most regions of England and Wales.

The experiments came to light in the late 1990s, when the Ministry of
Defence admitted that since they were conducted doubts had surfaced over the
safety of zinc cadmium sulphide.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20000324_1976.html