Bill would help vets exposed to toxic tests

Bill would help vets exposed to toxic tests
Thadeus Greenson/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 05/02/2008 01:24:16 AM PDT



Ferndale's Jack Alderson still bears the wounds of his service in the United States Navy decades ago.

They aren't the overt scars of shrapnel and gunshot wounds. They are covert, like his service, and come in the form of malignant melanoma, prostate cancer and high blood pressure.

For decades Alderson has believed his ailments were the direct result of the classified military operation Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD), in which chemical and biological agents such as VX nerve gas, Sarin Nerve Gas and E. Coli were tested with the help of Alderson and his crew. The problem was, until several years ago the Department of Defense never admitted the tests took place.

”When you're hitting your head against the brick wall known as the Department of Defense, it takes patience,” Alderson said Thursday, the same day North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson introduced legislation to help Alderson and thousands of others like him.

Thompson and Congressman Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., introduced a bill that would provide health care to veterans subjected, many unknowingly, to biological and chemical weapons tests conducted in the 1960s and 1970s.

The bill would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to assume that the toxins used in the weapons tests of Project 112, which included Project SHAD, caused injury to veterans, making them eligible for medical benefits and compensation for their conditions.

”I worked with the Department


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of Defense, and for years they denied that this was happening. Finally we were able to learn that this was in fact happening, and that a lot of military personnel had been exposed to VX nerve gas, Sarin nerve gas and E. Coli -- some of the worst chemicals known to mankind,” Thompson said Thursday in a teleconference with reporters.
”Out of frustration and a desire to help our veterans,” Thompson continued, “we are introducing legislation today that would establish a presumption of service connection, which means these military personnel would have to be identified and, once identified, they would have access to the health care they need.”

As a part of Project SHAD, Alderson said at least he knew he was a part of the “hot tests.” He said he and his crew were trained to set up test sights and clean them up after the tests, collecting samples of air and animals exposed. Others weren't as fortunate, he said.

Alderson said the government also conducted simulant tests, where they sprayed unknowing military vessels and even U.S. cities with live pathogens, in some cases causing immune system failures and even death.

During the teleconference, Rehberg said part of the problem is no one knows just how many people were affected.

”It seemed like the Department of Defense had dropped the ball and hadn't even tried to identify those who had fallen ill,” Rehberg said.

Thompson agreed.

”Part of the problem is we don't know,” he said. “The best numbers we have right now are somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000. Vietnam Veterans of America thinks it's much higher than that.”

Thompson said the health benefits in the bill won't be symptom-based, but would rather be open to anyone who served in Project 112 for any variety of ailments.

So, under the bill which carries a presumption of service connection, Alderson would get health care benefits for his conditions, which he said a doctor at a Veteran's Affairs hospital in San Francisco said were due to Alderson's having smoked at the time of his service.

But Alderson is quick to point out that he has been luckier than many, as he estimates 60 percent of his fellow servicemen who participated in the “hot testing” are now dead.

To Thompson, that means this legislation is long overdue.

”We have some veterans that are long dead because of the exposure they received, and that's just plain wrong,” he said.

Thompson and Rehberg also said during the teleconference that there is too much blame in this issue to simply place at the feet of one administration.

”It's not just this administration, it's the one before and the one before that,” Rehberg said.

”It's been 40 years of administrations,” Thompson interjected.

After its introduction Thursday, the bill will head to a veterans committee before coming to back to the House floor for a vote before heading to the Senate, where a similar bill stalled in 2006.

Thompson said he was “cautiously optimistic” this bill will fare better.

After a decade of working with him on the issue, Alderson said he is confident Thompson will do his part to make sure the bill becomes law.

”I have nothing but the highest praise for the job he's done -- he's stuck with us through a lot of stuff,” Alderson said. “I have a lot of faith in Mike.”


Thadeus Greenson can be reached at 441-0509 or tgreenson@times-standard.com
Bill would help vets exposed to toxic tests

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It is my opinion that Congress should use this opportunity to include all of the Cold War veterans used in classified exposure tests, at Fort Detrick - biological weapons, and at Edgewood Arsenal where they tested chemical weapons Sarin, Mustard Agents, 254 substances in all among them LSD, PCP, scopolomine and Ecstacy, I don't know the statistics for Fort Detrick but the last medical study in FY2000 publiished in March 2003 as a report used for Gulf War illnesses used the Edgewood veterans as a (base group) they are the only known men exposed to Sarin. The report found that the men aged 45-65 at the time reported 4022 survivors out of the 7120 men used from 1955 thru 1975 that indicates a 40% death rate and of the 4022 survivors, 54% of them reported some form of disability. A combined death and disability rate of 74.43%, it is time ALL of the victims of the classified experiments were given the care and compensation they deserve. Why only accept responsibility for one group of veterans who were exposed to harmful substances?

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