In 1961, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara oversaw the development of secret biological and chemical testing programs, numbered one through 150.

In one of those projects, No. 112, the Defense Department between 1962 and 1973 conducted biological and chemical warfare tests on land off the Alaska Highway near the Gerstle River, just southeast of Delta Junction. The military wanted to know how deadly nerve gases such as Sarin and VX would linger in the arctic environment.

Soldiers in protective suits in military vehicles were also taken through sprayed areas to see how long the nerve gases stayed in the field after spraying and to test decontamination practices.

Project 112 itself called for more than 100 tests, according to Washington, D.C., attorney Doug Rosinski, who is representing more than 50 veterans in a lawsuit against the federal government over their claims that they were exposed to toxic agents during those tests. About half of the 100 tests in Project 112 were performed in Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Florida, Rosinski said.

The military, under the auspices of Project 112, also sprayed by air what was believed to be harmless bacteria in the woods and along the Alaska Highway from Delta to the Canada border, said Robert Layne, with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. Subsequent, unrelated research showed that Bacillus globigii, one of the bacterial agents, could cause infections in people with weakened immune systems.

E. coli and tularemia, both infectious agents, were also used in the tests in Alaska, according to the Department of Defense.

The U.S. government, including the Veterans Administration, denied the project for years when veterans came forward with health problems they suspected were related to the testing, Rosinski said. Frustrated by the denials, some veterans began asking for their service health records.

The military wouldn't release those, saying they were classified, Rosinski said. Finally in October 2002, the Pentagon, under pressure from veterans and Congress, admitted to the testing and released summaries of 28 tests from Project 112.

In some of the tests, radioactive isotopes such as zinc cadmium sulfide and phosphorus 32 were used as tracers to help track the dispersal of the agents, according to the summaries.

In high concentrations, both can cause cancer. Zinc cadmium sulfide was used in Alaska, but no one is sure if phosphorus 32 was, the summaries read.

But the National Research Council, which is part of a national nonprofit association of science technology and medical academies, concluded that the amount of cadmium used would not have harmed those who were exposed during the Alaska testing.

But according to a complaint filed by Rosinski's plaintiffs, the military has known or should have known that since 1973 zinc cadmium sulfide "does present a potential health hazard to experimenters and other humans exposed to it ..."

Diana Campbell can be reached at 459-7523 or dcampbell@newsminer.com .