Thursday, February 04, 2010
1972 Army Drug Experiments
A group of Vietnam veterans are proceeding with their lawsuit against the military and intelligence agencies for subjecting them to secret experiments that took place from the 1950s through the 1970s. A federal judge in San Francisco, Claudia Wilken, ruled in the veterans’ favor after the defendants—the Department of Defense, CIA and U.S. Army—tried to block the case from moving forward. The case is being pursued by Vietnam Veterans of America and Swords to Plowshares, as well as five individual plaintiffs.
According to the lawsuit, the CIA has prevented about 7,000 individuals from getting medical care since being subjected to experiments at the Edgewood Arsenal in Edgewood, Maryland, that involved mind control, dangerous drugs, and electronic implants. One test subject who is part of the lawsuit, Frank Rochelle of Onslow County, North Carolina, was administered atropine, an anticholinergic drug with hallucinogenic properties, which caused him to experience more than two days of hallucinations and take a razor blade to his body because he thought his freckles had turned into living bugs.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Veteran Seeks Case Against DoD (by Hope Hodge, Jacksonville NC Daily News)
Vets' Claims Over CIA Experiments Survive (by Jamie Ross, Courthouse News Service)
Vietnam Veterans of America v. CIA (U.S. District Court, Northern California) (pdf)
Edgewood Arsenal Chemical Agent Exposure Studies 1955 - 1975 (Force Health Protection & Readiness Policy & Programs)
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