Is it fog? Or a government test in disguise?

Residents of the St. Louis neighborhood Pruitt-Igoe recall running through a thick, stinky fog as kids in the 1950s and 60s, which would stick to their skin.  It wasn’t foggy weather, however–the mist came from the backs of trucks or tops of neighborhood buildings.   Men in HAZMAT-like suits and goggles who claimed to be “maintenance workers” did the spraying, but they didn’t give any details about what was in the fog.  Decades later, these spraying tests were revealed to be conducted by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps as part of the U.S. Biological Warfare Program, which was tasked to prepare for biological warfare (BW) from enemies such as the Soviet Union. These dispersion tests used fluorescent particles of zinc cadmium sulfide (ZnCdS) sprayed in Minneapolis, MN; Corpus Christi, TX; Fort Wayne, IN; St. Louis, MO; and 29 other urban and rural locations in the United States and Canada. The ZnCdS tests were conducted to determine how BW agents disperse in various environments and to determine the munitions requirement (the quantity of a material required to achieve a particular military objective) for the strategic use of BW agents against selected cities and other areas.  In the 1990s, in response to residents’ questions and complaints about health effects including, cancer, the U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency (AEHA) prepared reports that assessed the health risk to humans who had been exposed to ZnCdS in those cities.  The conclusion was that the spraying of ZnCdS “should not have been associated with any adverse health effects for residents in the test areas”.  

In 1994, the Army asked the National Research Council (NRC) to independently review the AEHA reports to determine the reasonableness of the AEHA conclusions, and, if necessary, suggest recommendations for improving the assessments.  Although the 380-page NRC report is available, according to this video news report (minute 4:35), the NRC said that repeated exposure to ZnCdS could cause kidney or bone toxicity or lung cancer, but that they could not fully assess the risk, because some Army records remain classified, and some Army exposure records are “missing”.  The site of the St. Louis spraying, a 33-building housing development that has since been demolished, was not sampled or tested, and no residents have been contacted for testing.  In the Summary of this report, the public response to the testing was documented: “People were outraged at being exposed to chemicals by the government without their knowledge or consent.”   In the news video previously cited, the interviewed residents feel that the government is waiting for them to die.

Operation LAC (Large Area Coverage) dispersed ZnCdS to simulate BW scenarios, because the particles were similar in size, solubility and air dispersal characteristics to bacteria that might be used.  Stations on the ground tracked the fluorescent zinc cadmium sulfide particles as they were carried by wind. Most disturbingly, experts on radiological weapons, such as Brigadier General William Creasy, and expert on using radiological particles in aerosol form, scientist Philip Leighton, were involved in designing the dispersal experiments which were run across the US.  However, a statement by the Army said that “None of the reports contained evidence of a radioactive component to the zinc cadmium sulfide dispersion tests.”

A key document, the Joint Quarterly Report 5, has not been obtained despite requests via the Freedom of Information Act; the lack of disclosure is called a constructive denial.  According to renowned activist Erin Brockovich, the lack of full disclosure has enraged this St. Louis community similar to other coverups she’s witnessed over 30 years of activism.  Residents cannot get compensation from the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act for radiation exposure during the Cold War, because the necessary document(s) proving their exposure are either classified or missing. 

Several documentaries and books detail the antiquated racial ideologies that prompted the US government to treat some citizens as guinea pigs (the majority of the St. Louis Pruitt-Igoe were poor, and black).  Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor has spent decades researching the declassified documents about the programs, and notes that one of the compounds that was sprayed on the public was called “FP2266.” According to the Army documents, FP 2266 was “made by New Jersey Zinc (NJZ) Company and is now made by U.S. Radium Corp.”  While not definitively proven, she believes that FP 2266 and Radium 226 (a highly radioactive compound that sickened and killed female workers at U.S. Radium) are in fact the same compound.  Even if the spray did not include radioactive material, it’s possible that the cadmium component and particle size could be lethal in its own right, as Philip Leighton noted that particle sizes of the material should be kept between 0.75μ and 3.0μ, “so small, the particles could probably be inhaled and deposited deep in the lung.”  (Pruitt-Igoe: A Black Community Under the “Atomic Cloud”)

Pruitt-Igoe is only one part of a sordid history of experimentation on children (70% of the community’s population was under 12 at the time) and adults who were vulnerable because of their financial and social status.  Despite legal blocks for future tests, such as the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 which barred nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, is there really anything the government won’t do under cover of secrecy?  “

• Human Radiation Experiments (1940s–1970s): Conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, DoD, and Public Health Service. Included injecting unsuspecting hospital patients with plutonium, feeding radioactive oatmeal to children at the Fernald State School, and exposing prisoners and soldiers to radiation. Thousands of people were affected. Source: https://ehss.energy.gov/ohre/roadmap/achre/summary.html

• Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972):  U.S. Public Health Service study of 600 Black men in Alabama (399 with syphilis, 201 without) where treatment and informed consent were withheld—even after penicillin became standard.  Source: https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/about/timeline.html CDC

• Operation Sea-Spray (~1950):  U.S. Navy conducted an open-air release of the bacterium Serratia marcescens over San Francisco to study aerosol dispersal; later Senate testimony acknowledged the San Francisco tests and noted concerns about subsequent infections. Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1950-us-released-bioweapon-san-francisco-180955819/ 

• Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies (1956–1972):  At New York’s Willowbrook State School, researchers intentionally infected institutionalized, intellectually disabled children with hepatitis to study the disease’s course and prevention; scholarly summaries (on NIH/PMC) estimate roughly ~800 child subjects across multiple trials. Federally funded by the NIH. Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7335725/ PMC

• Project MKULTRA (1953–1973): CIA program with 149 subprojects across 80+ institutions researching behavioral modification, including administering LSD and other techniques—sometimes to unwitting subjects; the total number of exposed individuals is unknown due to 1973 record destruction.  Source: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-files-hearings-95mkultra.pdf Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

• Army & CIA chemical testing on soldiers and civilians (1940s–1970s): GAO found DoD and other agencies ran tests that potentially exposed tens of thousands of U.S. service members—and some civilians—to chemical/biological substances (e.g., nerve/mustard agents, psychochemicals) via lab and open-air trials.  Source: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-08-366.pdf Government Accountability Office

• Project 112 / SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) (1962–1973):  DoD shipboard and land-based tests of chemical/biological agents and simulants to assess vulnerabilities and protective measures; about 6,000 U.S. servicemembers participated. Source: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/shad/basics.asp Public Health VA
  

“As of 2007, no U.S. government researcher had been prosecuted for human experimentation. The preponderance of the victims of U.S. government experiments have not received compensation or, in many cases, acknowledgment of what was done to them.” (Unethical human experimentation in the United States)   If this is what we know to have happened for all these  decades (and no one was held accountable), what may be happening today?  Whether what we see/feel/experience is a natural phenomenon, or not, it is up to us as individuals to take responsibility for our own health.  Big corporations and the government are not going to do it for us, and may in fact be “researching” the ill effects of substances it intends to use later in warfare or control. 

Photo by Klara Kulikova on Unsplash