This is a new Associated Press
article below just retrieved,
which shows and proves there
is a second military population in
England who are directly matched
to the Edgewood Human Chemical
Experiments of the 1960's and 70's
here in the United States at Aberdeen,
Fort McClellan, and Dugway in Utah.
Also below is the companion posted
release LINK at the official VA website
for the U.S. Edgewood veterans. This
appears to suggest that the whole idea
of these tests actually came from
either NATO or the United Nations back
in the day. It really does add a new
piece to the puzzle of why these tests
were even done at all.

____________________________________



Jan 31, 3:04 PM EST


UK Compensates Chemical-Test Veterans

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press Writer

UK Compensates Chemical-Test Veterans


LONDON (AP) -- Britain's defense ministry said Thursday it had agreed to pay a total of $6 million in compensation to 360 military veterans who took part in secret chemical weapons tests during the Cold War.

Defense Minister Derek Twigg apologized to the veterans, many of whom claim to have suffered serious long-term health problems as the result of the tests, but said the government did not admit liability.

"The government accepts that there were aspects of the trials where there may have been shortcomings and where, in particular, the life or health of participants may have been put at risk," Twigg said in a written statement to lawmakers.

"The government sincerely apologizes to those who may have been affected."

However, he said, the real risk of chemical attack meant that "the security of the country rested on these trials and the contribution of those who took part in them."

In the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of servicemen and women were exposed to substances including nerve agents, poisons and LSD at the Porton Down military research facility in southwest England.

At least one of the test subjects died. In 2004, an inquest ruled that Royal Air Force mechanic Ronald Maddison, 20, had been unlawfully killed when the nerve agent sarin was dabbed onto his arm during tests at Porton Down in 1953.

The government eventually paid 100,000 pounds, now worth about $200,000, to Maddison's family.

A government-commissioned study concluded in 2006 that some of the experiments at Porton Down seriously deviated from ethical standards. But the report also concluded that the tests, conducted between 1939 and 1989, were necessary in the context of global conflict and Cold War-era tensions.

The government says all those who took part were volunteers offered extra pay and time off as an incentive. But a group of veterans has fought for years for compensation, claiming they were tricked into participating in what they believed was research into a cure for the common cold.

Twigg said the $6 million sum was "in full and final settlement" of the veterans' claims. The ministry said the veterans and their lawyers would decide how the money was divided up.

The veterans' lawyer, Alan Care, welcomed the payment.

"I think this is a good deal for the veterans," he said. "I'm very pleased for them."

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END of AP


http://www1.va.gov/environagents/docs/USHInfoLetterIL10-2006-010.pdf