Porton Down

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Research facilities at Porton Down

Porton Down is a research facility in the southern county of Wiltshire , best known as the center of British chemical and biological weapons research . Large parts of the facility are still subject to confidentiality today.

history

Testing of mortars at Porton Down during World War I.

On April 22, 1915, during the Second Battle of Flanders , the Germans had successfully used poison gas on a large scale for the first time by letting chlorine gas flow out of metal cylinders. On September 25, the British responded at the Battle of Loos with their own similar attack. A constant race between the warring parties for increasingly effective gas weapons had begun.

In January 1916, the British War Department acquired the first 12 square kilometers of land south of Salisbury Plain , on which the scientists soon began their work. The effects of various chemical warfare agents on humans and animals were tested in field trials and special gas chambers. In addition, the bodies and organs of poison gas victims from the front in France were examined. By the end of the war, the workforce had grown to more than 1,000 soldiers and scientists as well as around 500 civilian workers.

After the end of the First World War it was decided to continue operating the research facilities in Porton Down. In addition to developing various gas weapons, including poisonous hand grenades and smoke bombs with adamsite , work was also carried out on conventional weapons. Anti-tank weapons , for example, were manufactured and the Stokes mortar improved. In addition, a process was developed in Porton Down for the targeted spraying of mustard gas from aircraft at altitudes of up to 4,500 meters.

In 1940 research was expanded to include biological warfare agents. In 1942, scientists from Porton Down on Gruinard Island carried out tests with anthrax spores. In the same year, 5 million portions of cattle feed contaminated with anthrax and which were to be thrown over Germany as part of Operation Vegetarian were packed in a specially developed facility in Porton Down . Though never actually used, it was the first mass production of biological weapons in history. As recently as 1980, the British government claimed that the United Kingdom had never "possessed or acquired microbial or other biological warfare agents and toxins in sufficient quantities to be used in weapons".

To study the spread of bacterial clouds, (non-toxic) clouds of smoke were released in residential areas of Salisbury and Southampton . Between the spring of 1957 and the autumn of 1959, zinc cadmium sulfide was sprayed and observed to spread in numerous areas of the United Kingdom. The scientists from Porton Down chose this substance because it can still be easily detected even in small quantities.

Not only did the scientists conduct their experiments in the UK itself, but also used test sites in the US, Canada, Australia, India, and Nigeria.

According to the British government, development of its own biological and chemical weapons ceased in the 1950s. Since then, research has only been carried out on protection against such warfare agents. In addition, small amounts of biological and chemical warfare agents would continue to be produced. There is also a facility for the professional disposal of chemical weapons in Porton Down.

Porton Down is now the world's oldest chemical warfare agent production facility.

After the Asian flu outbreak in 1957, Porton Down produced 600,000 doses of an appropriate vaccine.

It was not until the late 1960s that the British government officially admitted the research facility to exist.

Today the site covers an area of ​​28 square kilometers. The military research facilities are operated by the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory , which is subordinate to the United Kingdom Department of Defense .

In 1979 part of the facilities was split off organizationally; these now belong to Public Health England , which is subordinate to the Ministry of Health. In 2015, Porton Biopharma was founded to commercially exploit the pharmaceutical development and manufacturing capabilities of Public Health England in Porton Down. Among other things, various vaccines against anthrax are offered or newly developed.

Over 3000 scientists work in Porton Down; the total annual budget is £ 500 million .

Approximately 1,500 acres of the site are FFH areas and are monitored by the UK Environmental Change Network , a research network of the Natural Environment Research Council that studies long-term environmental changes and their effects on ecosystems in the UK.

Names of the military facilities at Porton Down

  • War Department Experimental Station (1916) → Royal Engineers Experimental Station (1916) → Chemical Warfare Experimental Station (1929) → Chemical Defense Experimental Station (1930) → Chemical Defense Experimental Establishment (1948) → Chemical Defense Establishment (1970) → Chemical & Biological Defense Establishment (1991)
  • Biology Department, Porton (1940) → Microbiological Research Department (1948) → Microbiological Research Establishment (1957) → Chemical & Biological Defense Establishment (1991)
  • Chemical & Biological Defense Establishment (1991) → (part of) Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (2001) → (part of) Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (2004)

Animal testing

The effects of poison gas on various animal species were investigated in Porton Down as early as the First World War. Later there were even farms of their own on the site, which were exclusively intended to raise animals that were needed for animal experiments with weapons of mass destruction. Rats, chimpanzees, sheep, goats, cats and dogs, among others, were used.

In the aforementioned experiments on Gruinard Island , sheep were used that had previously been bought from local farmers.

In the summer of 1952 and 1953, scientists from Porton, off the coast of the Scottish island of Lewis and Harris, infected several thousand small mammals and around 100 monkeys in cages on rafts with bacteria from a ship. In the following two years, similar experiments took place because of the better weather in the Bahamas.

Between 1952 and 1970 alone, 1000 monkeys, almost 200,000 guinea pigs and 1.75 million mice were "consumed" in Porton Down. In 2013, experiments were carried out on 5,641 mice and 447 domestic guinea pigs , among others . These were not just experiments with biological and chemical weapons. For example, pigs were exposed to explosions after they had been partially put into protective vests .

Try on people

As early as the 1920s, experiments on humans were carried out in Porton Down , including diphenylarsine chloride and mustard gas .

In the 1950s and 1960s in particular, chemical warfare agents were tested in over 20,000 cases on mostly unsuspecting soldiers, including many conscripts. Many of them believed that they were involved in the development of a new drug for the common cold. At least 3,400 cases were tests with nerve agents, but mustard gas, LSD and the tear gas CS were also tested on humans. In May 1953, 20-year-old RAF member Ronald Maddison died after sarin was dripped on his forearm. Nevertheless, the experiments with nerve agents continued until at least 1958. Around 25 people are said to have died as a result of the late effects of the experiments in Porton Down.

In 1967 scientists from Porton Down in a London hospital infected patients with leukemia or terminal cancer with their consent with Kyasanur forest fever and Langat virus (which is related to the TBE virus ). Two of them died of encephalitis . Officially, the viruses should be tried out as a cure for the patients, but the Kyasanur forest fever was at that time in Fort Detrick , the US counterpart to Porton Down, considered as a possible bioweapon.

Legal processing

In 1999, Wiltshire Police opened an investigation into the Porton Down incident. In May 2004, another judicial investigation began into the death of Ronald Maddison.

Although the results of the investigation confirmed that there had been criminal conduct, no one was charged. The Crown Prosecution Service ruled that there was insufficient evidence against individuals to convict them.

In 2005 the former soldier Thomas Roche was awarded compensation for pain and suffering in the amount of 8,000 euros and damages in the amount of 47,000 euros by the European Court of Human Rights . He had participated in tests with mustard gas and nerve gases between 1962 and 1963.

In early 2006, the British foreign secret service MI6 reached an out-of-court settlement with three former military personnel to pay damages in an unspecified but “moderate” amount, presumably below £ 10,000 per person. They had been given LSD at Porton Down in 1953 and 1954 without their knowledge or consent .

In July 2006, the UK Department of Defense published a report calling the human experiments at Porton Down "unethical".

In May 2006, Ronald Maddison awarded eight survivors a total of £ 100,000 in compensation.

In January 2008 the UK Department of Defense announced that it would pay 360 former military personnel a total of £ 3 million without acknowledging responsibility. A total of 500 veterans stated that they suffered from long-term effects of the experiments.

Artistic reception

British singer-songwriter Peter Hammill wrote a song called Porton Down and released it on the pH7 album in 1979 . In the 1980s Andy Xport composed a piece of the same name that was released in 2008 by the band Man's Hate on the album Into the Abyss .

literature

  • Rob Evans: Gassed: Behind the Scenes at Porton Down , House of Stratus Verlag, 2000, ISBN 978-1842320716
  • GB Cater: Chemical and Biological Defense at Porton Down, 1916-2000 , Stationery Office Books, 2000, ISBN 978-0117729339
  • Great Britain: Ministry of Defense: Porton Down: 75 Years of Chemical and Biological Research , Stationery Office Books, 1992, ISBN 978-0117727328
  • Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, ISBN 3-453-86570-7 (first German edition Econ Verlag 1983)
  • U. Schmidt: Cold war at Porton Down: informed consent in Britain's biological and chemical warfare experiments. In: Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics: CQ: the international journal of healthcare ethics committees. Volume 15, Number 4, 2006, pp. 366-380, PMID 17066763 , PMC 1832084 (free full text).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 73
  2. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The story of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 75
  3. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 75 + p. 89
  4. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 145
  5. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 142
  6. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 247
  7. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002
  8. ^ The Truth About Porton Down , June 26, 2016
  9. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 67
  10. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 264
  11. ↑ Hubert Erb: Porton Down Syndrome is catching up with Great Britain , Heise online , August 27, 2001
  12. Jump up ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 279
  13. ↑ Porton Biopharma website
  14. ↑ Michael Mosley: Inside Britain's secret weapons research facility , BBC , June 28, 2016
  15. ^ The Porton Down ECN Site
  16. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 71 + p. 276
  17. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 117
  18. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 247ff.
  19. ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 263
  20. ↑ Andy Lines: Outrage as animals 'tortured' in gruesome Porton Down military experiments , Daily Mirror , March 11, 2015
  21. ↑ Martin Bagot: Live pigs strapped into body armor and blown to PIECES by British Army training in the UK , Daily Mirror , March 26, 2014
  22. ^ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 75f.
  23. ↑ Peter Michalski: Deadly Experiments , Welt am Sonntag , August 26, 2001
  24. ↑ Tom Levine: British Army allegedly misinformed soldiers: Investigations into tests with poison gas Sarin , Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 1999
  25. ^ Rob Evans, The past Porton Down can't hide , The Guardian , May 6, 2004
  26. Jump up ↑ Robert Harris , Jeremy Paxman: The silent death - The history of biological and chemical weapons , Heyne Verlag , 2002, p. 279
  27. ↑ Peter Michalski: Deadly Experiments , Welt am Sonntag , August 26, 2001
  28. ↑ Tom Levine: British Army allegedly misinformed soldiers: Investigations into tests with poison gas Sarin , Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 1999
  29. ↑ Porton Down death inquest opens , BBC news , May 5, 2004
  30. ↑ MoD tests on humans 'unethical' , BBC news , July 14, 2006
  31. ↑ Hubert Erb: Porton Down Syndrome is catching up with Great Britain , Heise online , August 27, 2001
  32. ^ Justine Picardie: The Toxic Avenger , The Independent , September 30, 1995
  33. ^ UK Police probe Porton Down deaths , BBC news , October 18, 1999
  34. ↑ Porton Down death inquest opens , BBC news , May 5, 2004
  35. ^ No Porton Down charges , BBC news , July 8, 2003
  36. ↑ No charges over Porton Down tests , BBC news , June 12, 2006
  37. ↑ Gas tests breached human rights , BBC news , October 19, 2005
  38. ↑ Full text of the judgment , European Court of Human Rights , press release 551 (2005)
  39. ^ Rob Evans: MI6 pays out over secret LSD mind control tests , The Guardian , Feb. 24, 2006
  40. ↑ MI6 payouts over secret LSD tests , BBC news , February 24, 2006
  41. ↑ MoD tests on humans 'unethical' , BBC news , July 14, 2006
  42. ↑ David Shukman: MoD pays out over nerve gas death , BBC news , May 25, 2006
  43. ↑ Timeline: Porton Down Laboratory , BBC news , January 31, 2008
  44. ↑ David Shukman: MoD pays out over nerve gas death , BBC news , May 25, 2006
  45. ↑ Porton Down lyrics on www.songtexte.com
  46. ↑ Porton Down by Peter Hammill at www.songfacts.com
  47. ↑ Porton Down by Man's Hate at www.songfacts.com

Coordinates: 51 ° 8 ′ 2.5 "  N , 1 ° 42 ′ 5.7"  W.