
The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950 - tomkwok
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacterial-weapons-in-san-francisco-2015-7
======
alexggordon
I grew up in St. Louis and I found out about chemical testing[0] that went on
here awhile ago.

I think the scariest part was that I'm sure it was specifically tested in a
low-income area purposely, because the people there could probably do less
about it. A relevant bit from the article:

> Spates, now 57 and retired, was born in 1955, delivered inside her family's
> apartment on the top floor of the since-demolished Pruitt-Igoe housing
> development in north St. Louis. Her family didn't know that on the roof, the
> Army was intentionally spewing hundreds of pounds of zinc cadmium sulfide
> into the air.

> Three months after her birth, her father died. Four of her 11 siblings
> succumbed to cancer at relatively young ages.

The fact that there probably are still people in the US government making
similar decisions makes me a lot more nervous about life.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/army-sprayed-st-louis-with-
to...](http://www.businessinsider.com/army-sprayed-st-louis-with-toxic-
dust-2012-10)

~~~
alexggordon
The MSDS[0] for ZnCdS is pretty telling, for those who are interested.

[0]
[https://www.mpbio.com/includes/msds/ghs/en/MP_MSDS_219945_US...](https://www.mpbio.com/includes/msds/ghs/en/MP_MSDS_219945_USA_EN.pdf)

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abhinai
"... the court held that the government was immune to a lawsuit for negligence
and that they were justified in conducting tests without subjects'
knowledge.".

I sincerely hope there was some rationale to this decision that I do not know
or understand. Otherwise it would be very hard for me to have any faith left
in our judicial system.

~~~
andreyf
"rationale to this decision that I do not know or understand"

I imagine the rationale went like this:

We have intelligence that the soviets are developing weapons with deadly
bacteria X with delivery mechanisms {Y, Z, ...}. We believe they can deliver
an attack on this set of cities and we have this set of probabilities of
stopping it. We've conducted experiments on animals and understand how X would
affect an organism similar to a human. Now we need to figure out how it would
spread through a city to prepare for the scenario where an actual attack took
place. We need to test our metropolitan areas for spread by an airborne
bacterium. Let's pick the most harmless bacteria we can find not native to an
area and see how it spreads.

The framing in the article is incredibly biased. By no definition of the word
is it accurate to call humans the subjects of the experiment.

If the risk of a bacterial attack was real, then it would be negligent _not_
to prepare for such an attack, as it could mean the loss of tens of millions
of lives across all metropolitan areas. The "subjects" of this test were not
the humans, but the interaction of a bacteria and the structure of the city -
to see how a similar but harmful organism would spread through a metropolitan
area. These tests were not testing how these bacteria affect humans (it was
known that they don't, and for the extraudinarily vast majority of cases, they
didn't). As a matter of fact, the bacterial strains were chosen specifically
because they have little or no immunity to antibiotics [1] and posed no known
threats to humans.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/15/us/judge-s-decision-
expect...](http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/15/us/judge-s-decision-expected-
soon-in-california-germ-warfre-case.html)

~~~
y4mi
at least create a relatively harmless agent and monitor it? something which
causes several people to perish is in no way harmless enough!

but you probably don't want to take his site in this argument and only gave us
his official (and sourced) stance.

~~~
thesteamboat
How can you tell if an agent is harmless enough? In 1950, San Francisco had a
population over 750,000 (see [0]). There was one death that we know of that
seems likely linked to this bacteria. How would you find an agent that is more
harmless? After all, the effect of this agent seems to be on the order of one
in a million.

How can you find out an agent causes death one in a million times without
testing it on (roughly) a million people?

I think that there are valid reasons to be concerned or upset about this test,
but that they chose an insufficiently harmless agent is not one of them.

[0]:
[http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SanFranciscoCounty5...](http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SanFranciscoCounty50.htm)

------
bayesianhorse
To their defense, they seem to have thought that they were using harmless
bacteria. The background seems to be that they wanted to test the distribution
of the bacteria rather than the effects on humans (which they thought to be
zero any way).

Add to that the fact that bacterial infections often hitchhike on other
injuries, infections or conditions, it's not clear that the death was entirely
the fault of the particular bacterium.

In any case, it was a violation of the Nuremberg code, and I'd hope no
democratic state would do such a thing in the current time.

~~~
Shivetya
I would hope NO state would do such a thing in the current time. We are well
past the point in civilization to accept this type of action from any state or
organization.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Pre 2001 a lot of people would claim that we are also against torture,
extrajudicial kidnapping, secret trials, locking people up without trial, mass
surveillance, and unprovoked wars. Things change.

Just as between WWII and the cold war people likely claimed "we'll never let
stuff like what the Nazi's did happen again!" then the country(s) feel
threatened and the gloves come off.

~~~
brillenfux
When was this "in between" you speak of? The cold war pretty much started with
WWII.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Per Wikipedia: "Historians have not fully agreed on the dates, but 1947–1991
is common" (WWII ended in 1945 for reference). But the cold war was a slowly
building thing that took many more years to reach fruition.

So now that we've dealt with pedantic complaints that are wrong anyway, do you
have any substantive problems with what I said?

~~~
Lawtonfogle
Marking a cold war feels almost like marking when one species becomes another.

------
iamben
The UK did the same between 1940 and 1979 in various tests with zinc cadmium
sulphide, e.coli and bacillus globigii. I suspect these kind of things are
largely the basis for the Chemtrails conspiracy theories.

More:
[http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalsc...](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience)

~~~
halviti
If you're curious about the chemtrail crowd, I'd recommend the "documentary"
'what in the world are they spraying'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0khstYDLA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0khstYDLA)

It's one of the many conspiracy type videos out there, and I don't endorse the
content in any way.. I just find this stuff fascinating

~~~
dr_zoidberg
What I always found "fascinating" about conspiracy theories is how educated,
smart people can be convinced by some of them. It's just something that I
can't understand.

~~~
MichaelGG
What seems to happen is that you come across a compelling set of evidence. The
evidence is faked, or skewed heavily, but it might be hard to know this. And,
as presented, the cases are usually pretty good. If you're unable to
immediately dispute them, it isn't totally irrational to think they might be
real.

This is the reason I don't watch documentaries on modern "issues". The story
presented is all very manipulated and you're certain to get an incorrect set
of evidence.

What _is_ boggling is how smart people _stay_ convinced by conspiracies, after
contradictions are pointed out. But changing your mind is a hard thing to do,
so perhaps it's not that surprising?

~~~
jakeogh
An effective tactic to prevent people from looking into something is to
promote obviously false information, bonus if it's offensive, and associate it
with information that can be verified. Another related tactic is for people
who have a long track record of promoting false information promote something
that's verifiable. That way people will dismiss real information that has been
associated with bs. There is a paper, by a good friend of mine on this
"Discrediting By Association: Undermining the Case for Patriots Who Question
9/11", and links to much more info in my profile.

And I agree, there are many documentaries on modern issues that are pure junk.

------
akie
If you get a redirect loop on this article, like I did, click here to access
Google's cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9c7coIh...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9c7coIhY1eUJ:www.businessinsider.com/the-
military-tested-bacterial-weapons-in-san-
francisco-2015-7+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
voidz
I got it. What causes it?

------
onewaystreet
The US government did all sorts of crazy tests on people in the 50s:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra)

~~~
pdkl95
Not just MKUltra - there is a long history of what I would describe as
"shockingly unethical" experimentation in the US. The US Government (usually
military) is probably the most common actor and/or funder, but they are not
the only responsible parties.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States)

This is why a _lot_ of people (myself included) take a hard-line position of
any kind of testing involving humans. Yes, it's often a waste of time to run
many trivial experiments by an IRB first, but history has shown that some
people seem unable to make this kind of judgement call probably. Really, in
many case, an IRB simply serves the same purpose as assert(3); it's a "sanity-
check". Like all sanity check, in theory it shouldn't be necessary, but
history shoes it's worth checking anyway.

~~~
nmrm2
If the IRB regime had existed in the 40's, I doubt it would've have stopped
this and other experimentation.

IRBs are effective at checking back everyday scientists. I somehow doubt an
IRB panel would be need to be consulted by someone powerful enough to have the
authority to load a crapton of bacteria onto a boat and spray it into SF.

~~~
pdkl95
Of course it wouldn't have stopped everything, but it would have helped -
probably a lot. When _everybody_ is getting their 3rd-party stamp of approval,
those that do not are a lot more conspicuous.

Also, one of the steps in a typical IRB process is to sanity catch mistakes.
As mentioned in another post, the people spraying bacteria over SF probably
believe they were doing a "safe" experiment about dispersion properties. In an
environment were it was regularly expected use an approval process, there
might have been a _chance_ for someone with biological knowledge to inform the
experimenters of their error.

------
golergka
They did indeed break the code, in particular, provisions 1 and 9 (it is
unclear whether they implemented facilities for point 7 or not), however: they
reasonably believed that the experiment was harmless (and they were mostly
right, given the experiment's scale), and the data they collected would be
very usable for saving civilian lives in case of bacterial attack. So, I'm not
saying that it's OK, but it's unreasonable to paint this as something
completely evil and vicious.

~~~
markonthewall
I am not sure how you could possibly tolerate that military entity broke the
law and made biological experiments on humans, especially when the said
experiments resulted in a tragic loss of lives.

This is pure evil.

~~~
andreyf
What law did they break, exactly?

The experiment wasn't on humans - the position of the CDC is that humans were
unaffected, and the data gathered was about how harmless bacteria spread
through a densely populated city, to better protect those humans if a
_harmful_ agent were to do the same.

At a time when biological warfare was a reasonable threat to make plans for, I
don't think it's wholly unreasonable to consider these kinds of simulations
justified.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/15/us/judge-s-decision-
expect...](http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/15/us/judge-s-decision-expected-
soon-in-california-germ-warfre-case.html)

------
effdee
They did the same in NY City and Washington DC [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_112](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_112)

~~~
acjohnson55
They still do similar things in NYC:
[http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Brookhaven-Gas-
Sub...](http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Brookhaven-Gas-Subways-
Chemical-Weapon-Study-Equipment-Installation-214692501.html)

~~~
metamet
But at least this time they announced it ahead of time?

------
igonvalue
> This is a crazy story, one that seems like it must be a conspiracy theory.

Well, it _is_ a conspiracy theory, isn't it? Just because it's true doesn't
make it not a conspiracy theory.

~~~
maxerickson
It was a conspiracy.

The evidence means it isn't a theory.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
Still a theory, just a proven one.

------
fapjacks
The important takeaway from all of this stuff is that no, the government did
not suddenly stop doing all kinds of secret mass-experimentation on civilian
populations. If you look at the history of these kinds of experiments and
believe anything the government says, you would think they just stopped doing
things like MK-ULTRA and Project SHAD thirty or forty years ago. Well,
folks... They didn't. Fifty years from now on whatever the new HN is, there
will be a post about some kind of massive psychological (or biological, or
chemical, or whatever) experimentation the US government conducted fifty years
from then on the unknowing civilian population of San Diego, or Portland, or
whatever. Mark my words...

------
contingencies
That's not all: they raised a Nazi flag in SF city hall, too! See John
Gutmann's photograph _The News Photographer_ (1935), where he takes the micky
out of the subject photojournalist for missing the real story.
[https://www.pinterest.com/pin/465559680200258166/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/465559680200258166/)

Note that I've read the reasoning behind the event was apparently the visit of
a German navy crew and 'protocol' (the US and Germany were not yet at war)
rather than the weak line discussed at that URL. Still, a little known fact.

------
brycemckinlay
The bacteria in the air are what's responsible for the unique, delicious taste
of San Francisco sourdough.

------
Houshalter
I'm just asking because I am curious. If someone's immune system is so weak
they can die of a common "harmless" bacteria, would they probably have died of
something else anyway? We are surrounded by and filled with millions of
bacteria at all times.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Hospitals are somewhat controlled environments and they try to account for
every pathogen they expect to find. But they didn't expect a biological attack
with an airborne bacteria.

------
staunch
The people of San Francisco had their personalities permanently altered
through the Navy's inadvertent distribution of peace juice? The U.S. military
created the hippie movement and ended the Vietnam war. Impressive.

What other great wrongs can be righted through careful mass infection of
populations?

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Maybe the feds liked going to San Francisco enough that they made testing
biological or chemical weapons a thing there, like the time the CIA spiked a
bunch of people with LSD, including an armed federal marshal who was tripping
so bad he almost shot a bartender.

------
CognitiveLens
can we change the title to be a little less click-baity? even just adding "in
1950" would make it less like a tabloid cover article.

------
elchief
So, do the astroturfers get a heads-up when articles like this appear so they
can prepare?

~~~
nsxwolf
Why would you think there are astroturfers for this? Do you really believe the
government hangs out on Hacker News to propagandize support for testing
biological weapons on unwitting citizens?

That sounds really paranoid.

~~~
nnbvv
Many large governments do this. The US does too probably:

"It has been reported that HBGary Federal was contracted by the U.S.
government to develop astroturfing software which could create an "army" of
multiple fake social media profiles.[36][37]"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary#Astroturfing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary#Astroturfing)

~~~
nsxwolf
But this would be such a sinister thing - testing bioweapons on citizens -
that catching an astroturfer would be a huge scandal. It wouldn't be worth the
risk. This isn't fracking.

Downvoters: If you really think I'm wrong, then this is the story of the
century. Stop whatever you're doing and start a doxxing effort against these
astroturfers. You believe the government is literally trying to shape opinion
in favor of killing its own citizenry. What could be more important than this
story? Get to it. This is Pulitzer stuff.

------
notNow
Does this have anything to do with the measles outbreak and the ensuing
vaccination/anti-vaccination debate in California?

~~~
redletterdear
no; read the article it's in the 50's

~~~
Lingster
Damn! There goes my "Get those Hippies" theory..

------
dmritard96
that explains it...

------
crimsonalucard
Back in 1996, some terrorists almost launched VX gas–armed M55 rockets from
alcatraz into the middle of san francisco. Fortunately, chemical weapons
specialist, Doctor Stanley Goodspeed saved the day.

------
briandear
We're going to test the effect of nuclear weapons on San Franscisco so we can
understand the effects of nuclear weapons on San Franscisco so we can protect
San Francisco from a future attack by nuclear weapons or so we can understand
the effect of the nuclear blast on Vladivostok. Sounds rather like the
Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment. To be fair though, the United States of far
from the only country that has done this sort of thing.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Obvious troll but I'll bite.

They were testing the distribution method and trying to do so in a harmless
way.

A better comparison would be "we're gonna load a shipping container with a
bomb casing full of concrete and irradiated enough to look like a live nuclear
weapon, then try to sneak it into the port and see if we get caught."

