Posts Tagged ‘Biological Warfare’

During 2004, two UK television documentaries were produced which investigated the past activities of the UK Government’s Biological Warfare facility at Porton Down, Wiltshire. The programmes revealed that scientists from Porton Down had used the UK as a vast outdoor laboratory during the Cold War. From 1950 to 1975, Porton scientists had clandestinely sprayed massive amounts of live bacteria (Serratia marcescens, E. coli MRE162 and Bacillus subtilis) and several tons of chemical compounds (such as Zinc Cadmium sulphide) over large parts of the UK.

The first programme shows – how Royal Enfield workers in an underground factory at Westwood Quarry were repeatedly exposed to an opportunistic pathogen in the early 1950s; how members of the public travelling on a regular railway train on the Salisbury-Exeter line were sprayed with live bacteria by Porton scientists while travelling through a tunnel; how the city of Salisbury was ‘attacked’ during August of 1960 with large amounts of a cadmium compound: and how Porton sceintists conducted the large, and now infamous, series of experiments – known as the Lyme Bay Trials.
The latter experiments exposed millions of UK residents to massive aerosols of live bacteria (E.coli and Bacillus subtilis) during the years 1963-1975. The huge bacterial clouds were sprayed from an Admiralty ship – ETV ICEWHALE – and were carried onshore by the wind and sampled by Porton scientists up to 50 miles inland.
Although this research was meant to be of a defensive nature, the official Porton film of these experiments stated: “Whilst these trials were designed for specific research purposes, they demonstrated, in a striking way, the feasibility of small-scale biological warfare. An appreciable dose of viable bacteria was achieved over an area greater than 1,000 square miles, by the release of only 120 gallons of suspension.

This is the second of two UK documentaries which investigated the past activities of the UK Government’s Biological Warfare facility at Porton Down, Wiltshire.
It includes details of: the Lyme Bay Trials, during which Porton scientists repeatedly sprayed massive amounts of live bacteria (E.coli MRE 162 and Bacillus subtilis) across Southern England; the mysterious ‘dual-use’ Biological Warfare research aircraft (Canberra WV787, aka ‘The Icing Tanker Aircraft’); the previously unknown series of releases of live bacteria across Southern England, which were conducted during demonstrations for the UK Military in 1968; the joint UK and USA germ warfare detection experiments, conducted in South Dorset during 1971; and a previously unknown series of joint UK and USA germ warfare detection experiments which were conducted in South Dorset during 1975 (the DICE Trials).
The programme also contains a remarkable interview with Professor Brian Spratt FRS, who in 1999 was commisioned by the UK Ministry of Defence to conduct an Independent Review of the Lyme Bay Trials (renamed in 1997 by Porton as the Dorset Defence Trials). During the interview Prof. Spratt reveals that he was not informed by the MOD of the existence of both the 1968 experiments and the 1975 joint UK USA germ warfare detection experiments.
The programme reveals that limited experiments, such as those conducted at Royal Mail Sorting Offices at Nottingham, Sheffield and London during November 2001, continue. Indeed, in 1999 Porton admitted that Government Ministers refused to rule out conducting larger scale public area experiments in the future.