The purpose was to evaluate the impact of low-dose chemical warfare agents on military personnel and to test protective clothing, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines.
A small portion of these studies were directed at psychochemical warfare; grouped under the title "Medical Research Volunteer Program" (1956–1975), driven by intelligence requirements and the need for new and more effective interrogation techniques.
[3] The experiments were abruptly terminated by the Army in late 1975 amidst an atmosphere of scandal and recrimination as lawmakers accused researchers of questionable ethics.
In 1947, the first steps of planning began when Dr. Alsoph H. Corwin, a professor of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University[4][5] wrote the Chemical Corps Technical Command positing the potential for the use of specialized enzymes as so called "toxicological warfare agents".
A classified report entitled "Psychochemical Warfare: A New Concept of War" was produced in 1949 by Luther Wilson Greene, Technical Director of the Chemical and Radiological Laboratories at Edgewood.
"[8] Soviet advances in the same field were cited as a special incentive giving impetus to research efforts in this area, according to testimony by Maj. Gen. Marshall Stubbs, the Army's chief chemical officer.
[4] General William M. Creasy, former chief chemical officer, U.S. Army, testified to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1959 that "provided sufficient emphasis is put behind it, I think the future lies in the psychochemicals.
It is important to note however, that in the decades since their introduction to medical use, research has begun to suggest a causal relationship between long term anticholinergic drug use and later development or worsening of dementia.
[1] The 1976 report on the matter identifies the sole objective of the psychochemical experiments as determining the impact on morale and efficacy such agents would have on military units.
[4][33][34] LSD is a Psychedelic drug that acts as a dopamine and serotonin agonist[35][36] precipitating a hallucinogenic effect, leading to hallucinations, euphoria, and a wide variety of physiological symptoms.
Because of limited documentation, it is difficult to ascertain which experiments occurred at which installations, but available documentation describes several general types of experiments; which included presenting individuals with radar symbols for interpretation, having them track a simulated aircraft, having them read a map, having them interpret meteorological data, and having them attempt to defend an installation against a simulated hostile air craft attack with 40-mm antiaircraft automatic weapons.
Existing documentation admits only that the substance was tested at Edgewood Arsenal, and all other data, including the medical records from the subjects are completely missing.
The founder and director of the program, Van Murray Sim, was called before Congress and chastised by outraged lawmakers, who questioned the absence of follow-up care for the human volunteers.
An Army investigation subsequently found no evidence of serious injuries or deaths associated with the MRVP, but deplored both the recruiting process and the informed consent approach, which they characterized as "suggest[ing] possible coercion".
With regard specifically to BZ and related compounds, the IOM study concluded that "available data suggest that long-term toxic effects and/or delayed sequellae are unlikely".
The chemicals were given to volunteer service members at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland; Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; and Forts Benning, Bragg, and McClellan.
[43]The official position of the Department of Defense, based on the three-volume set of studies by the Institute of Medicine mentioned above, is that they "did not detect any significant long-term health effects on the Edgewood Arsenal volunteers".
By this logic, Edgewood was possibly the safest military place in the world to spend two months.As late as 2014, information was incomplete; IOM could not conduct adequate medical studies related to similar former US biowarfare programs, because relevant classified documents had not been declassified and released.
Instead, they sought only declaratory and injunctive relief and redress for what they claimed was several decades of neglect and the U.S. government's use of them as human guinea pigs in chemical and biological agent testing experiments.
The prior finding held that the Army has an ongoing duty to seek out and provide "notice" to former test participants of any new information that could potentially affect their health.
[48] The following chemicals were identified by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine as having been used in the Edgewood Arsenal Experiments, though they did not receive an EA number designation.