Other Columns by Thomas D. Segel
Thomas D. Segel Bio

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Bernard G. Elfert of Florida was assigned duty at the facility. He recalls, "Clinical and other testing was conducted to determine the effects of various agents on humans. The testing programs were highly classified. I am unaware as to the current security classifications of the toxic chemicals and phychochemicals employed there, so I cannot specify their designations, the agents involved or regimens. However, I have heard that since then most agents tested have been outlawed for military use."

Elfert says, "In the absence of volunteer participation the various chemical agents could not have been tested. The nature of the testing involved agents that posed unknown risk factors and such hazards could not be forced on military personnel as a duty." He believes the exposure to these various tests placed volunteers in danger and at great personal risk going far beyond the call of duty. In his opinion, those who underwent the tests were heroic.

One volunteer for the medical research program was Eric Muth, a seventeen-year-old Army private from Connecticut. During the orientation process, he along with the other volunteers was required to sign Security Non-Disclosure Statements and Consent Agreements. These papers stated that the volunteers acknowledged "awareness" of the hazards involved. The test subjects were also promised complete follow-up medical care and either the Soldier's Medal or a special medal then under congressional consideration for exposing themselves above and beyond the call of duty.

During two separate testing periods in 1958, Private Muth was subjected to multiple exposures to those same toxic agents now outlawed by our country and other nations. He was also repeatedly and unwittingly exposed to psychochemicals. Today, he along with about 4,000 other human test subject survivors find themselves physically or mentally harmed for life.

Muth who left the National Guard in 1969 as a Staff Sergeant, is a disabled veteran and is under treatment by the VA. When he first applied treatment was disallowed because he was an "over income" veteran. He finally was granted medical care, not through the assistance of the government, but because he kept good personal records and obtained additional documentation of his service in the program through the Freedom of Information Act. Winning this treatment required him to battle the government for six years, before it was approved. With that approval, he is among a small number of test survivors to be offered care.

Other test subjects of chemical warfare testing are still blocked from treatment because the Pentagon will not release their names, thus evading responsibility for treatment by shifting the burden of health care to the private sector.

None of the military personnel were informed of the serious risks to life and health they faced, because those conducting the experiments had no knowledge of what would happen to people who were exposed to the test agents. They were made promises of health care and personal decorations for their heroic service, none were ever honored.

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