CIA Tries Again to Duck Responsibility for Doing Drug Experiments on Veterans

CIA Tries Again to Duck Responsibility for Doing Drug Experiments on Veterans

By MARIA DINZEO
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SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - The Central Intelligence Agency in January will argue for dismissal of Vietnam veterans' claims that the CIA must provide them with information about the health effects of chemicals used on them during Cold War-era human experiments. The CIA also claims it is not obligated to provide the veterans with medical care for side effects of the drugs. It's the CIA's third attempt to get the case dismissed.
In a 2009 federal lawsuit, Vietnam Veterans of America claimed that the Army and CIA had used at least 7,800 soldiers as guinea pigs in "Project Paperclip." They were given at least 250 and as many as 400 types of drugs, among them sarin, one of the most deadly drugs known to man, amphetamines, barbiturates, mustard gas, phosgene gas and LSD.
Among the project's goals were to control human behavior, develop drugs that would cause confusion, promote weakness or temporarily cause loss of hearing or vision, create a drug to induce hypnosis and identify drugs that could enhance a person's ability to withstand torture.
The veterans say that some of the soldiers died, and others suffered grand mal seizures, epileptic seizures and paranoia. The veterans say the CIA promised in the 1970s to compensate those who were made guinea pigs, but the 2009 complaint states that the government "never made a sincere effort to locate the survivors."
In its 32-page motion to dismiss the group's third amended complaint, the CIA claims it has no legal obligation under the Administrative Procedures Act to provide the veterans with notice of the drugs' health effects and that the veterans' notice claim "rests solely on state common-law duty."
The CIA claims that the law on which the veterans base their claim for health care compensation stems from the Department of Defense and Army regulations, "which do not purport to have a binding affect on the CIA."
And it claims that the Defense Department "never intended nor committed to providing medical care for service member participants in the test programs."
In its response, the veterans group says the CIA has already tried, in past motions, "to re-argue issues already decided" by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in 2009. "Defendants argue that plaintiffs do not state a claim for relief under the APA against the CIA or the Department of Defense because they do not allege a legally enforceable duty against those agencies," the response states. "Defendants presented this argument in each of their previous motions to dismiss," but the court has already "rejected this line of argument," finding that a letter from the Department of Justice supports the groups' claim that the CIA is obligated to provide them with medical care.
"Contrary to the court's express direction, defendants now seek to use the addition of the new parties as a crass opportunity for another bite at the apple (their third), seeking to re-litigate issues the court already decided nearly a year ago," the group says.
The hearing is set for Jan. 13, 2011 before Judge Wilken. The case is expected to go to trial in 2012.

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the writer made the mistake of calling these "7,800 soldiers as guinea pigs in Project Paperclip." The conde names used for the experiments were known as MKULTRA, Artichoke, Naomi, Blueberry etc Operation paperclip was the OSS/CIA project to bring Nazi war criminals into the US after WW2 as President Truman had stated that no known Nazi's could be brought in they had to be "good germans" so the agencies cleaned up the records of these 2100 men and their families and brought them in primarily thru Canada in the early 50s, men like Werner Von Braun, Dr Strughold men who would do great things for the science and medical communities of the US and many worked for American corporations after they spent a few years or a decade working for military programs at places like Edgewood Arsenal, Fort Detrick, Fort McClellan, Dugway Proving Grounds etc it is estimated that nine of them worked at Edgewood Arsenal during the years that human testing was done on enlisted Army volunteers, however none of the volunteers were ever told that some of the researchers were tied to the death camps of WW2 Europe, I get the feeling that the power to be knew that the soldiers would not have volunteered if they had been given that information. I know I would not have volunteered, knowing what I know now I feel that I was duped and lied to, and I think it is time for the government to tell these veterans all of the substances they were or might have been exposed to and the toxix water wells that were used until 1978, for the bases drinking water and other uses such as cooking and bathing, swimming pools etc, after the EPA conducted tests in 1978 all of the wells were capped on base and in the aquifer of Edgewood Maryland and water was then piped in from an outside source that was clean. The EPA superfund is still working on the clean up of Edgewood Arsenal in 2010, more than 30 years later, the base was really contaminated. The water could hardly be called "safe" before 1978 how much of the toxins were we exposed to and how many of mour medical problems are related to either the experiments themselves or the water? Will we ever know? Who is repsonsible? The Army declines to answer and the VA states we can't prove the water harmed us, can they prove it didn't harm us? What about reasonable doubt?

Seriously a program that has a 75% death and disability rate for men aged 45-65 just leaves a lot of questions and it seems that our government would prefer NOT to answer them, why? What about the PROMISE to care for military personnel either killed by service or harmed by service we have to fit in here some place.

They can stonewall the truth but the graves are full and more will be and that can not be changed. The right or wrong is now irrelevant helping the veterans and their widows should be the goal the misguided reasons for doing the experiments and the men who authorized them are mostly deceased as are most of the "volunteers" but some of them are still alive and they need medical care and compensation as do the widows. The children of these men also deserve the truth. Their fathers were not just crazy old men who felt abused by the Army, they were veterans who were abused by the Army and then the VA, the CIA just used some of the scientists at Edgewood Arsenal to share the data and in some cases guided the substances used to find what would be advantageous for men like Sidney Gottlieb.

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