From the Scottsman Newspaper

Health risks of secret UK germ warfare tests revealed

SEVERIN CARRELL
Political Correspondent

VULNERABLE civilians suffering from breathing illnesses may have been seriously harmed by secret biological warfare tests by British military scientists, a Government-sponsored inquiry has revealed.

A report released by the Ministry of Defence yesterday confirms that an unknown number of people suffering from breathing illnesses, particularly the elderly and children, could have been directly affected when scientists covered large areas of south-west England with harmful bacteria in the 1960s and 1970s.

The independent study by Professor Brian Spratt, a leading epidemiologist at Oxford University, dismisses fears that the secret trials caused miscarriages or serious long-term illnesses. However, Prof Spratt's report raises serious questions about the conduct of scientists at the secret biological and chemical warfare establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, and their failure to assess the likely affects of the tests on civilians.

The disclosure of the secret tests came after intense pressure from local campaigners.

The MoD promised yesterday that the findings would now be followed with another independent investigation into the health effects of other secret tests across England using the potentially toxic chemical zinc cadmium sulphide.

Prof Spratt's report focuses on a series of tests by Porton Down on the transmission of biological agents released by sprays from aircraft and ships in Dorset and east Devon.

A number of tests used the "microthread technique" where bacteria were attached to the threads of a spider's web.

Prof Spratt said the spiders' thread tests "posed no conceivable threat to human health", but he added that the other trials "did expose a large number of people to clouds of bacteria that would have been breathed into the lungs".

These trials, carried out between 1961 and 1976 to simulate the likely effects of biological attack on the UK by the Soviet Union, included releases from ships anchored off Dorset and by large-scale releases from aeroplanes of four different species of bacteria, including a common strain of E coli.

In one trial, Porton Down scientists set up at least 60 testing stations in Devon, Dorset and Hampshire after spraying the bacteria in two "arcs" which were 150 miles in length and stretched up to 30 miles inland. The affected areas included Totnes, and parts of Poole, Bournemouth, Weymouth and Torquay. In the largest releases, people in the open air would have breathed in up to 50,000 bacteria spores each, but some people could have inhaled much larger amounts, depending on local conditions.

Two of the bacteria, Serratia marcesens and bacterium (Klebsiella) aerogenes, were killed before they were released into the environment.

"Inhalation of the dead bacteria would have posed no significant threat to health, although the possibility of minor chest irritation in a few susceptible individuals cannot be excluded," Prof Spratt said.

Another bacteria, bacillus globigii, was rare and very unlikely to cause disease. The E coli MRE 162 strain, however, could have harmed the vulnerable, he said.

Prof Spratt insisted that very few people would have inhaled a million or more spores, and even then that inhalation was "very unlikely" to cause disease in the vast majority of individuals. "It is, however, possible that inhalation of E coli MRE 162 could have caused a lung infection in a few individuals with underlying lung disease (eg cystic fibrosis), or a blood infection in individuals who were particularly susceptible to infection," he said.

He added: "Exposure to the bacterial aerosols may have caused infections in a few highly susceptible individuals soon after exposure, but none of the bacteria released in the Dorset defence trials are believed to cause chronic ill health."

The next inquiry into the zinc cadmium sulphide tests will examine claims that hundreds of thousands of Britons might have been harmed by the tests which covered large areas of England.

An illegal discharge of radioactive waste from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, was being investigated by the Environment Agency last night. It was revealed that an isotope used in the manufacture of Trident warheads had been dumped in a stream.