Chemical
warfare: Inside Britain's toxic house of horrors
Lethal
doses of poison
were tested on troops, says report into top secret Porton Down
Published: 09 July 2006
Servicemen were
deliberately
subjected to lethal doses of poison in secret tests at Porton Down, an
official
report will admit this week.
The Ministry of
Defence is
now braced for a flood of compensation claims from volunteers used in
trials at
its chemical weapons research centre.
The long-delayed
"historical survey" of Porton Down finds that at least five sets of
trials "may not have met the ethical standards required," The
Independent on Sunday has learnt. They include one trial in which drops
of a
poison were placed on the skin of volunteers at a dosage level believed
at the
time to be fatal.
Another test saw
six soldiers
severely injured after their genitals were exposed to mustard gas to
test
prototype protective underwear.
The trial, in which
an RAF
serviceman, Ronald Maddison, died in agony after being given sarin, is
also
condemned in a list of cases in which scientists were acting "at the
edge
of their knowledge".
Ministers
commissioned the
report into Porton Down six years ago, under pressure from volunteers
who were
convinced that they had suffered long-term health damage.
Professor Sir Ian
Kennedy, a
world authority on ethics, was asked to review hundreds of secret tests
carried
out on servicemen between 1939 and 1989. Although most were properly
carried
out according to the standards of the day, scientists sometimes placed
volunteers in "uncontrollable danger", according to his conclusion to
the report.
On one occasion
during the
Second World War, urgent tests were needed on an unknown substance
found in
some captured German shells. The poison, which turned out to be a nerve
agent,
was given to both men and rabbits simultaneously. It was only when one
of the
rabbits died that the test was hurriedly brought to an end.
Thousands of
servicemen were
encouraged to volunteer to become guinea pigs in Porton Down, induced
by offers
of extra pay. The true nature of what they had signed up for was often
concealed from them - many believed, for example, that they were taking
part in
research on the common cold.
Although they had
the right
to withdraw, the volunteers were often not told they could pull out at
any
time.
Most returned
unharmed after
undergoing routine, harmless tests. But the harrowing detail of what
happened
when things went wrong was revealed during an inquest two years ago of
the
death of Leading Aircraftman Maddison. A jury ruled that he had been
unlawfully
killed, after hearing that he collapsed, convulsing, after sarin was
dripped
onto a pad on his arm on 6 May 1953.
Giving evidence,
Alfred
Thornhill, an ambulance man at Porton Down, told the inquest of the
serviceman's last moments.
"I had never seen
anyone
die before, and what that lad went through was horrific. The skin was
vibrating
and there was all this terrible stuff coming out of his mouth."
The MoD recently
paid out £100,000
to the family in compensation and is now braced for a flood of new
claims. Alan
Care, the family's solicitor, who has spent more than a decade
researching
Porton Down, estimates that around 300 volunteers will join a court
action
later this year.
An MoD official who
has seen
the report said that it praised the dedication and bravery of Porton
Down's
scientists, who often volunteered for the most risky trials themselves.
"But it's
inevitable
that most attention is going to be on those trials where things went
wrong.
There is no doubt that some of the survey makes very uncomfortable
reading," he said.
Ken Earle, of the
Porton Down
Veterans Support Group, said: "All we have ever wanted was an apology
and
a full public inquiry. This report sounds as if it's going to be
damning, but
there is much more we need to know."
Mr Earle, who was
subjected
to the same sarin test as Maddison, said he expects to take part in the
compensation case against the MoD. He added: "It was gross
negligence."
The guinea pigs:
A history
of dangerous experiments
The trial of liquid
nerve
agents on bare skin between 1951 and 1953, which led to one death.
A 1951 study of a
nerve
agent, the lethal dose of which had not been determined.
The trial of the VX
nerve
agent using a potentially lethal dosage.
The exposure of
volunteers to
mustard gas in the scrotal region in 1958 - without real consent.
The testing on
volunteers in
1945 of an unknown substance found in captured German shells.
The volunteer:
The sailor
given LSD in a sherry glass
Eric Gow remembers
sitting in
a Nissan hut in Plymouth with his friends and reading a poster inviting
volunteers to Porton Down.
"It was something
like
15 bob [75p] and a weekend off. We thought it sounded great," recalls
the
former Royal Navy radio operator.
His weekend in the
Wiltshire
countryside was to leave him permanently scarred, however, after he was
subjected to tests of both mustard gas and LSD.
It was for the
latter trial -
carried out by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) - that Mr Gow was
recently
awarded thousands of pounds in an out-of-court settlement.
Mr Gow, a
magistrate, said:
"We were each given a sherry glass of clear liquid."
The LSD's dramatic
effects
were almost immediate. Mr Gow, who was 19 at the time, describes how he
saw
"Catherine wheels explode on the floor" and then the radiator in the
room began to heave in and out "like a squeezebox". He also recalls
trying to ride a bicycle through the corridors while "laughing and
screaming".