Project 112 and SHAD: Chemical and Biological Tests on U.S. Troops

The Story

Picture a Navy ship steaming straight into a cloud on purpose. That, according to a 2007 Institute of Medicine report, was a normal day in Project SHAD. The most common method was for aircraft to fly in front of the target ship and release material from spray tanks mounted on the wings. The ship would then steer through the cloud and record what happened. When planes weren't used, a turbine disseminator on the ship's bow did the job.

SHAD, short for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was the seagoing half of a Cold War testing program. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Defense Department's Deseret Test Center in Fort Douglas, Utah planned and conducted a series of biological and chemical warfare vulnerability tests, on land and at sea. The land tests, known as Project 112, studied how agents behave in different environments and climates. The ship tests studied how vulnerable U.S. warships were to chemical and biological attack, and how crews should respond.

"No clear evidence of specific health effects ... does not constitute clear evidence of a lack of health effects." (Institute of Medicine, 2007)

Some of what drifted over those decks was real. The VA lists the nerve agents sarin, VX, tabun and soman, and biological agents including Coxiella burnetii (the cause of Q fever) and Francisella tularensis (the cause of tularemia). The Institute of Medicine's table of tests reads like a spy-novel index: Flower Drum I used sarin, Fearless Johnny used VX, and Shady Grove used Coxiella burnetii and Pasteurella tularensis. Many other trials used simulants instead, such as the bacterium Bacillus globigii or zinc cadmium sulfide.

The VA says about 6,000 servicemembers were involved, mostly from the Navy and Army, and most of them in SHAD. For decades, the tests stayed classified. The VA says it was only in 2000, at the VA's request, that the Defense Department began declassifying and sharing information about possible exposures and the people involved. The VA says it now sends letters to participants once the Defense Department provides their names.

Did it make them sick? The Institute of Medicine's 2007 study found no difference in overall death rates between participants and nonparticipant controls, but participants had a statistically higher risk of death from heart disease. The report cautioned that it lacked data on cardiovascular risk factors and any explanation of biological plausibility. Its bottom line was carefully balanced: "we have found no clear evidence of specific health effects that are associated with Project SHAD participation," but "this does not constitute clear evidence of a lack of health effects."

Official sources even differ slightly on the dates. The VA's public health page says 1962 to 1973, while its benefits page says 1962 to 1974. What isn't in dispute is the core of the story. The U.S. military ran secret chemical and biological tests involving thousands of its own people, and it told them about it only decades later.