The U.S. House of Representatives will consider a bill to create a commission to investigate a Vietnam-era U.S. Defense Department weapons research program known as Project 112/SHAD.

The bill authored by Rep. Mike Thompson has bi-partisan support, and the support of the California Legislature, in the form of a joint resolution by Sen. Wes Chesbro, Assemblywoman Patty Berg and others.

”They went to war for us. How can we not go to the mat for them?” said Berg, a Eureka Democrat. “I mean, we don't stop supporting our troops just because the war is over.”

Between 1962-1974 the SHAD program exposed nearly 6,000 unknowing American servicemen to deadly chemical and biological agents between 1962 and 1974. Many veterans have had serious medical problems from exposure to agents including VX nerve gas, sarin nerve gas, tabun nerve gas, Q fever, and tularemia.

Retired Eureka veteran Jack Alderson was a tugboat captain in the U.S. Navy during the mid-1960s tests. He worked with Thompson for years to get the government to admit it was culpable. He was dissatisfied with an earlier bill that provided medical aid to veterans, since full disclosure of the program by the U.S. Defense Department was not required.

That would likely change under the new legislation.

The new federal bill would establish a 10-member commission of Republicans and Democrats modeled after the 9/11 Commission. The commission would also seek to ensure that the U.S. Veterans Administration inform the thousands of servicemen involved in Project 112/SHAD of their exposure to the chemical and biological agents so that they may receive proper treatment and potential service-based disability compensation.

”The fact that this program ever existed is reprehensible; the fact that the Department of Defense is not now doing everything humanly possible to find the exposed Veterans and ensure they receive proper medical treatment is beyond shameful,” said Chesbro, and Arcata Democrat.

”Senator Chesbro and Assemblywoman Berg are doing a great service to our veterans by introducing this resolution,” said Thompson, a St. Helena Democrat.