United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories
- United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories
The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) were a suite of research laboratories and pilot plant centers operating at Camp (later Fort) Detrick, Maryland, USA from 1943 to 1969 under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps Research and Development Command. The USBWL undertook pioneering research into decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent production and purification for the U.S. offensive biological warfare program [Martin, James W., George W. Christopher and Edward M. Eitzen (2008), “History of Biological Weapons: From Poisoned Darts to Intentional Epidemics”, In: [http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/biological_warfare/biological.html Dembek, Zygmunt F. (2007), "Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare"] , (Series: Textbooks of Military Medicine), Washington, DC: The Borden Institute, pg 5.] .
History
The USBWL were created after Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1941 to review the feasibility of biological warfare (BW). The following year, the NAS reported that BW might be feasible and recommended that steps be taken to reduce U.S. vulnerability to BW attack. Thereafter, the official policy of the United States was first to deter the use of BW against U.S. forces, and secondarily to retaliate if deterrence failed. The USBWL were thus the United States' front-line defense against BW during World War II and the first half of the Cold War.
Disestablishment
In 1969, the USBWL ceased to exist when President Richard Nixon disestablished all offensive BW studies and directed the destruction of all stock piles of BW agents and munitions.
Operations
At Fort Detrick, the USBWL consisted of various labs and divisions, including:
*The Special Operations Division (1949-68), conducted hundreds of field tests of aerosolized simulants
*The Crops Division (called "Plant Sciences Laboratories" after 1966), evaluated thousands of compounds for herbicidal activity (including Agent Orange; see Herbicidal warfare)
The USBWL was also a parent facility overseeing testing and production centers elsewhere, including:
*Pine Bluff Arsenal, Alabama
*Horn Island, Mississippi
*Dugway Proving Ground, Utah
*Terra Haute, Indiana
References
ee also
*One-Million-Liter Test Sphere
*Building 470
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