Black enlisted men were used as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments during World War II—not by Nazi Germany, but by Uncle Sam.
As was reported by NPR, 60,000 American soldiers were enrolled in a secret chemical weapons testing program in which they were exposed to mustard gas and the chemical agent lewisite, which causes lung irritation and blisters. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Defense conducted the tests based on the race of the soldiers. Black, Japanese-American and Puerto Rican soldiers were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to the chemicals. White soldiers were used as the control group.
“They said we were being tested to see what effect these gases would have on Black skins,” said Rollins Edwards, 93, of Summerville, S.C. “You had no choice. You did not know where you were going. They didn’t tell you anything.”
Edwards says his skin still falls off in flakes as a result of the testing. For years, the World War II veteran carried around a jar full of flakes to convince people that something had happened to him.
Although the Pentagon had admitted as early as 1991 that the Army tested mustard gas on enlisted soldiers during World War II—and the experiment program was officially declassified in 1993—news about the racial targeting of soldiers was kept under wraps until recently.
Rollins Edwards, who lives in Summerville, S.C., shows one of his many scars from exposure to mustard gas in World War II military experiments. More than 70 years after the exposure, his skin still falls off in flakes. For years, he carried around a jar full of the flakes to try to convince people of what happened to him. Source: AMELIA PHILLIPS HALE FOR NPR
This revelation that the Army tested chemical weapons on soldiers of color is both troubling and an outrage, but the concept of Black people being used in medical and other experiments is by no means a new phenomenon. There are numerous examples of Black people being used as guinea pigs in unethical medical experiments. Perhaps the most well-known example is the Tuskegee experiment, in which the Tuskegee Institute and the U.S. Public Health Service studied the natural progression of syphilis in 600 Black men, who were never notified of their condition and were not treated. The tests, which began in 1932, did not end until news reports exposed the inhumane and racist practice in 1972.
But there are other cases beyond Tuskegee. For example, in the early 1800s, Sara Baartman, or “Hottentot Venus,” one of two KhoiKhoi women made into freak show attractions in Europe, was subjected to medical experiments. And modern gynecology was the result of torturous gynecological experiments that J. Marion Sims performed on enslaved women without anesthesia.
At the turn of the century, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted experiments on Black prisoners suffering from pellagra, which is a B-13 or niacin deficiency leading to sensitivity to sunlight skin lesions, dementia and death. In 1945, 53-year-old truck driver, Ebb Cabe, was injected with plutonium by the U.S. Atomic Agency after he was taken to the hospital and kept there for six months following a car accident. Cabe received 40 times the amount of plutonium—the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb—a typical person is exposed to over the course of a lifetime. He died eight years later of heart failure.
During the 1950s, the CIA and the U.S. military released half a million mosquitoes with yellow and dengue fever into Black Florida communities, leading to multiple illnesses and deaths. The government wanted to assess the use of mosquitoes as military weapons. Also in that decade, Henrietta Lacks became the first test subject on cloning, without her knowledge or permission, with 20 tons of her cells grown since her death.
During the 1950s and 1960s, poor Black St. Louis neighborhoods were used in Cold War experiments in which the Army, using aerosol blowers mounted on vehicles and rooftops, sprayed a radiation-laced toxin called zinc cadmium sulfide, a fluorescent powder. Thousands likely inhaled the toxins.
Rollins Edwards as a young soldier in 1945 at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Source: AMELIA PHILLIPS HALE FOR NPR
In the 1990s, children in Los Angeles were injected with an experimental measles vaccine unapproved by the FDA, and one which had developed a bad reputation for increasing high death rates in Haiti, Guinea Bissau and Senegal.
Between 2006 and 2010, 148 female prisoners in two California prisons—the majority Black and Latino— were sterilized without their consent. Meanwhile, Israel subjected African immigrant women to mandatory contraceptive injections of Depo-Provera, leading to a 20 percent birth rate decline for Ethiopian Israelis.
In 2000, federally funded researchers placed sludge from a sewage treatment plant on lawns and vacant lots in Baltimore and East St. Louis. The communities were told the toxic waste was safe. And in 2012, at least 500 children in Chad were given MenAfriVac—whose side effects include convulsions and paralysis— without notification or parental consent.
In addition, the CDC hid evidence that Black babies had more than triple the chance of developing autism if they were given an experimental measles vaccine before the age of three.
For years, the Black community has warned of conspiracies against their communities, and were told they were neurotic and imagining things. But as the latest news from the Pentagon shows us, these conspiracies are not theories but reality.
This really pisses me off. smfh
Who were on the Navy ships during the Bikini Island nuclear tests?
This is I theory that I think to be against the black woman. Just take a look around you. Black women seem to have a protruding stomach and out of shape, whereas the white females have no stomachs. Black women all seem to be shaped the same when we once were the modt shapely of all races but not anymore. Possibly another black community experiment. Do a survey the next time you are out riding around.
Heard this on NPR this morning. Crazy but not surprising.
Could it still be going on in some fashion?
Yup. I agree. Probably something to do with chemicals in processed foods. But you are right. And the US govt is STILL covertly experimenting on black troops. The above article also forgot to mention Jonestown, Guyana. That has been revealed as a CIA funded mind control experiment. Look it up on YouTube. So these freaks love to experiment on us. It's almost like the deranged & abnormal studying the sane/normal to try to figure out what sane & normal looks like.
Is the sky blue? Past behavior is always a good indicator of current/future behavior. When have these freaks PAID for any of their crimes? So you can BET they are still doing it. AIDS, and any of these new pandemics are all created in Ft. Detrick, Md. It has been purported with pretty convincing data that autism is caused by vaccines and black boys are statistically more likely to develop autism b/c of certain vaccinations. I won't even get into the other organized criminal experiments the US govt is behind. Just know that you are FINANCING this crap.
Trying to wipe us out. But God said don't touch my my anointed people.
I knew people were castrated when they had a toothache from an impacted tooth!
Why would anyone ever give up our guns and trust the government with our lives? Insanity
This world is a crazy place.
The world is not crazy…it's the people who control it & destroy it…sh but I feel you.
And they wonder why we don't trust them
better than commonly used animals — Ferguson and Baltimore proved that.
Then you wonder why Blacks won't go to the doctor. herbs are better..
STFU
White Soldiers and Saillers ,but from a safe distance. and on ground the Army tested a small atomic shell on ground troops., but still they were a safe way off from the blast.. to see how troops reacted in a atomic attack.
What do you call Flint?
Your are trying to justify this horrible and inhumane act..SMH
I think some one expiremented on your parents.
I see it all the time too. It trips me out that I can't help but notice it. It's as if we all have a pineapple shape around our mid-section. The overload of estrogen (ie birth controll especially pills and the large amoubt of consumed chicken.) During the early 90s, black women began to eat less beef and pork; and began eating more chicken. Chicken is/was overloaded with estrogen. "They plump when you cook them." So we naturally have estrogen, the chicken has natural estrogen and then it is injected with even more estrogen. With that in mind, eating chicken gives you 2x the amount of chicken your body already has. You are what you eat. IJS
Thry actually wonder why we do trust them.
Read Acres of Skin. Prisoners (BLack males) at Holmesburg Prison (Phila) were experimented (dermatologial) on from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Claimed they were tested to study the effects/uses of soaps, lotions, etc.
Black communities knew for years that the government used them as experiments. Everything they thought is true. They say Africa is used as testing ground for created diseases such as Ebola and AIDS. Maybe there is truth to that too.
No John Humphrey….my Daddy was white and he was right there on a ship right up front for the tests….not saying blacks weren't there too…but they damaged my Daddy for the rest of his life and me too as I have neurological issues that forced early retirement and lots of pain I live with every day. They (the Navy/government) never would admit they did wrong and would never tell the family why he was sent for over 6 months solitary treatment at Great Lakes Medical facility….So don't say they favored the whites on this one unless they just picked out my Daddy for the fun of it.
YES WHITES TOO!
John Humphrey My Daddy wasn't black and he wasn't spared. read my other posts