Medical ethics and biological warfare.

Abstract

Biological warfare development has been under way in the United States for twenty years. Since 1959 it has been much expanded, and recently the new military appropriation bill included another substantial increase for the Chemical Corps, which is responsible for this group ofweapons.' Biological warfare activity seems to have become an established feature of the American scene. OnJanuary 4, 1946, the nature of the secret work that had been going on during the war at Camp Detrick in Maryland was made public as biological warfare. Soon afterward, in line with the policy then in force of declassifying secrets, much of the wartime research that had been done at this and other BW installations was published. Camp Detrick was immediately recognized as a microbiological installation of first importance. It was suited to many kinds ofuseful research, especially with highly infective agents, or to the large-scale preparation of infective or toxic material. The excellence of the work done there during the war, the quality of its research personnel, and its obviously great potential for peacetime science helped to establish the reputation of Camp Detrick and similar stations in Canada and England. Perhaps the immediate postwar optimism, abetted by the enormous problems posed by nuclear weapons, helped silence possible objections. Acceptance seems to have come first from microbiologists. Camp Detrick quickly acquired a status—at the annual meetings of the * Department ofBacteriology, Washington University, St. Louis. This paper was presented at a meeting ofthe History ofScience and Medicine Society, Washington University School ofMedicine, St. Louis, May 9, 1962. 1 research, which in i960 was jumped to $46 million, has been allotted $150 million for fiscal 1963. The Army alone will have more than $110 million, 50 per cent more than in 1962, while Navy and Air Force support—including the lagging development of CBW delivery systems—was quadrupled by Congress and constitutes the remainder (Science Week [McGraw-Hill], May 4, 1962). The $48-billion arms bill was passed by a voice vote in the House on July 26, 1962.