Animal testing in armor

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Animal experiments in armaments are carried out worldwide in order to develop protection, healing and defense options for soldiers and the civilian population against weapon systems or warfare agents (military medical research), in order to develop weapon systems or increase their effectiveness (defense technology and military research), to train soldiers on weapons or in combat (military training) and to train military doctors and military medical personnel. Both conventional and atomic, biological and chemical warfare agents are tested on animals. The tests are carried out either by the military or by public or private institutes. They are mostly commissioned by the defense ministries of the respective countries and are subject to confidentiality for reasons of national security. Information on the type and scope of the ethically controversial experiments is therefore only poorly known. Mostly it was critical media reports, research by animal welfare or animal rights organizations or parliamentary inquiries (Germany) through which animal experiments in armaments came to the public.

Scope, funding, background

Europe

According to the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology, between 1978 and the end of 1984 (excluding 1983) around 1.9 million marks were spent on animal experiments in military medicine research in Germany. According to the Parliamentary State Secretary Peter Kurt Würzbach , around 69,000 animals were used for military medical experiments in almost the same period (1979 to 1983) in Germany. In the years that followed, these numbers fell significantly. In Section 7 of the revised German Animal Welfare Act , which came into force on January 1, 1987, animal experiments for testing weapons, ammunition and military equipment were prohibited. Exposing animals to the effects of weapons, ammunition and warfare agents in military medicine experiments in order to develop protective and therapeutic measures for soldiers was still allowed. Unless the experiments are assigned to civil institutions, they do not need to be approved or reported.

The British army used the mid-1980s in Porton Down (county of Wiltshire ), the scientific center of the Defense Ministry , annually about 10,000 animals for military and military medical experiments. On April 24, 1982, several thousand Brits demonstrated against the laboratory animal center, which at the time held 17,000 animals for military experiments.

Published facts / documents

Europe

Germany

Scandinavia

  • In 1978 photos were made public showing experiments carried out on anesthetized pigs on behalf of the Swedish National Defense Institute near Gothenburg . The effects of high-speed ammunition and semi -jacketed bullets (dum-dum bullets) that were fired at the animals from machine guns or precision weapons were tested. The serious abdominal wounds of the pigs were then operated on or treated by medical officers. The experiments were justified by the fact that the anatomy of pigs was similar to that of humans.
  • From 1978 to 1984, the Norwegian military shot and killed 240 pigs that were hung by their legs on shooting ranges. They first fired rifles at the hind legs and then fired pistols into the animals' belly. The pigs were then operated on, killed and burned.
  • In 1982, several newspapers, citing the German reservist magazine Loyal, reported on animal experiments that were carried out as part of an extensive maneuver with 23,000 Swedish soldiers. For this purpose, domestic pigs were anesthetized, shot at from a short distance and then operated on by Swedish military medics "in the field".
  • In 1984, Der Spiegel reported on animal experiments at the Foa research institute in southern Sweden: pigs were shot at with high-speed weapons from a distance of 100 meters because, according to General Bo Rydbeck, the military wanted to test a machine gun with human effects, the bullets of which were "at least 14 centimeters clean into the body tissue penetration".

England

  • 1942–1943 infected biologists at MRD Porton Down , the research center of the British military, all sheep living on the Scottish island of Gruinard (at that time about 80 animals) with anthrax or anthrax. As part of a top-secret bombing program, prototypes of weapons that could shoot anthrax spores were tested. The island was contaminated with anthrax until the mid-1980s and could only be entered with protective suits for half a century. The Imperial War Museum in London is in possession of a film documentary about the experiments which has since been released and which can be used for educational and research purposes.
  • In 1952, the British military research center carried out experiments to test biological warfare agents off the Scottish island of Lewis and Harris from May to September . In the secret series of experiments called "Operation Cauldron 1952", around 3500 guinea pigs and 83 rhesus monkeys that were on a pontoon were infected with the pathogens causing brucellosis and pulmonary and bubonic plague . The highly infectious bacteria were released by the military using radio remote detonators using a bomb or a spray device. A documentary film about the experiments has been open to the public since 2008.
  • In 1984 media reports made it public that in Porton Down 29 rhesus monkeys were shot in the head from a distance of five to ten meters projectiles at a speed of 2,400 km / h. The survival time of the animals ranged from two to 169 minutes. The attempts, which led to a heated debate in the House of Commons, were intended to provide insights into brain injuries and the design of steel helmets. In further experiments, dogs and sheep were shot at, rabbits were poisoned with nerve gas, and mice and pigs were contaminated with radioactive rays.

America, Russia and Asia

United States

  • In 1946, shortly after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , the American military carried out nuclear weapons tests on Bikini Atoll . To study the effect of nuclear weapons on animals, pigs and goats living in the immediate vicinity of the explosion center were fixed on the deck of a ship.
  • From the 1950s onwards, some of the approx. 200,000 to 250,000 rhesus monkeys that India was selling annually to US research institutions at that time were used in radiation tests - among other things to test the neutron bomb. Experiments are described in which monkeys that were 700 meters away from the explosion site died within 48 hours. Animals that were within a radius of 900 meters were unable to move for minutes and were dead after several days. Monkeys that were placed 1400 meters away survived for several weeks. According to reports by the "International League for the Protection of Primates" on this and other radiation tests with rhesus monkeys, for example on the effects of the atomic bomb, India's Prime Minister Morarji Desai completely stopped the monkey export on April 1, 1978, after it had previously been throttled to 20,000 animals per year had been.
  • From 1966 to 1978, psychologist Donald J. Barnes at the Aerospace Medicine Training Center at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio carried out probability estimates of the functioning of air crews after nuclear radiation. For this purpose, monkeys were trained to react to certain reaction patterns with the help of electric shocks and then exposed to ionizing radiation, with many animals dying during the experiments. Barnes increasingly questioned the meaningfulness of the experiments, came into conflict with his superiors and gave up his activity, which he excused in retrospect with "conditioned moral blindness".
  • In 1972, the science magazine Science published monkey experiments in the laboratories of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base , Ohio, USA , to find out how quickly people become blind under the action of laser beams. To do this, the monkeys' eyes were irradiated until the liquid in the eyeballs began to evaporate.
  • From 1975 to 1977 monkeys were trained to operate vehicle replicas at the Bethesda Marine Research Center and killed with various high doses of highly energetic rays. The military wanted to find out whether and how long people would remain functional after exposure to intense radiation from new radioactive weapons. In particular, the monkeys should provide clues about how long irradiated soldiers could drive tanks and operate weapons.
  • In 1981, a protest by an animal welfare organization made the public aware of experiments carried out by doctors and paramedics from the American Green Berets special unit on live goats at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina : The anesthetized animals were shot in the lower legs with small-caliber weapons. They were then treated under conditions similar to those found in the operating room of a military station. After seven days, the goats were again anesthetized in order to practice "delayed initial closure of the wounds" on them.
  • In 1983, the Washington Post revealed that at the Bethesda Military Medical School, Maryland, 80 mixed breed dogs were being shot in the hind legs from a distance of four meters with a 9mm caliber. Citizen protests prompted Defense Minister Caspar Weinberger to ban the experiments in July 1983. In January 1984 the Ministry of Defense lifted the ban.
  • In 1984 the Malaysian government banned the export of monkeys for use in scientific experiments. Research by the International Federation for the Conservation of Primate (Washington) had shown that the Americans had used Malaysian monkeys to test radioactive radiation and chemical weapons. The animals were irradiated with neutrons and treated with electric shocks or forced to walk on treadmills until they died.

Canada

  • In 1983 the dpa news agency reported on military experiments in Ottawa in which beagle dogs were radioactively contaminated in order to simulate symptoms of radiation sickness such as vomiting and nausea. The aim of the experiments was to find out how these secondary phenomena in soldiers in a nuclear war can be kept to a minimum. To do this, part of the brain that was suspected to be responsible for the nausea attacks was removed from a group of dogs. A control group with an intact brain was also irradiated.

Soviet Union

  • In 1935, the Soviet Union tested bacteriological weapons on laboratory animals.
  • Between 1958 and 1961, an artificial village was built on a test site near the town of Kyshtym , the inhabitants of which were goats and sheep. The effects of a 20 megaton atomic explosion were tested.
  • Since 1973, the authority had Biopreparat infected, among other things, monkeys with plague , smallpox , anthrax , tularemia , snot and brucellosis on a test site on the island of Wosroschdenija in the Aral Sea in order to develop biological weapons . In the experiments, the monkeys were tied to stakes in parallel rows of 50 animals each. By shooting down a metal shell, a cocktail of bacteria was exploded 25 meters above the monkey, which rained down on them as a cloud. The researchers observed the death of the animals and analyzed after their exitus to the effectiveness of biological weapons to improve in further experiments, the internal organs. With the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 and Boris Yeltsin's promise to end all biological weapons programs, animal testing on the island was also discontinued. In 2000 the locals mockingly called Vosroschdenija the island of stillbirth : there was no healthy baby in the nearby town of Muinak and the surrounding area, anemia and tuberculosis were widespread among children, and the cancer rate among adults was among the highest World. In 1988 several thousand saiga antelopes died in a single day not far from the Aral Sea for reasons unknown, several plague epidemics were reported in 1991, and cases of anthrax increased near the lake. According to experts, highly toxic anthrax bacteria survived, which are also spreading to the mainland due to the silting of the island.

North Korea

  • In 2009, Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center reported on interviews he had conducted in Seoul in 2003 with North Korean refugees about experiments that had been carried out on political prisoners to improve North Korean weapons of mass destruction . A scientist described to him in detail how his research group had carried out various animal experiments with poison gas and passed the results on to a second group, "who then did the same with people".

literature

  • Hans Ruesch : Naked ruler. Undressing medical science. Edition Hirthammer Tier- und Naturschutz, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-921288-44-4 .
  • Margot and Herbert Stiller , Ilja Weiss: Deadly Tests. Experiments with animals and humans. Edition Hirthammer Tier- und Naturschutz, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-921288-54-1 .
  • Ken Alibek , Stephen Handelman: Directory 15 - Russia's Secret Plans for Biological Warfare. Econ Verlag, Munich, Düsseldorf 1999, ISBN 3430110130 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Report on the funding of animal experiments from federal funds and measures to limit animal experiments. BMFT, 3/1984.
  2. ^ Letter from the Parliamentary State Secretary Peter Kurt Würzbach to Günter Pauli, Member of the Bundestag, on March 9, 1984.
  3. Number 17 died after being hit by fragments - animal experiments in the armed forces: pigs in the thunder of guns, dogs under single fire. In: Der Spiegel. No. 13, March 26, 1984, p. 78.
  4. Ilja Weiss: War against the defenseless. In: AnneMarie Droeven: Irrweg Tierversuch - facts, data, background. Lenos Verlag, Basel 1985, ISBN 3 85787 138 5 , p. 57.
  5. Augsburger Allgemeine . April 24, 1982.
  6. Frankfurter Rundschau . October 7, 1982.
  7. Stuttgarter Nachrichten . November 4th 1983.
  8. Number 17 died after being hit by fragments - animal experiments in the armed forces: pigs in the thunder of guns, dogs under single fire. In: Der Spiegel. No. 13, March 26, 1984, pp. 78-85.
  9. a b Animal experiments - sensitive topic. In: Der Spiegel. No. 15, April 9, 1984, pp. 37-40.
  10. a b c d e number 17 died after being hit by fragments - animal experiments in the armed forces: pigs in the cannon thunder, dogs under single fire. In: Der Spiegel. No. 13, March 26, 1984, p. 85.
  11. Animal experiments - sensitive topic. In: Der Spiegel. No. 15, April 9, 1984, p. 37.
  12. Number 17 died after being hit by fragments - animal experiments in the armed forces: pigs in the thunder of guns, dogs under single fire. In: Der Spiegel. No. 13, March 26, 1984, pp. 82, 85.
  13. Dirk Fisser: Deadly animal experiments in the Bundeswehr: Hundreds of animals die every year. In: New Osnabrück Newspaper. September 10, 2012.
  14. Horst Szwitalski: ... the next victim please! In: stern. No. 35. Aug. 24, 1978, pp. 16-17.
  15. The front pigs. In: Bunte. No. 36, Sept. 7, 1978, pp. 30-31.
  16. picture on Sunday . March 18, 1984.
  17. Military doctors practice on pigs. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 6, 1982.
  18. mess. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . May 28, 1982.
  19. ^ A b Philip Bethge, Marco Evers: Bioterror - Fear of the lightning epidemic. In: Der Spiegel. No. 43, October 22, 2001, pp. 226, 228.
  20. Christian Fürst: Deadly bacteria nest on a lonely island off Scotland - scientists lose control of their experiments. In: Darmstädter Echo. February 21, 1981.
  21. Calderon Howe, John Morton: X Base Gruinard Island Trials 1942-43. MRD Porton Down, 1942-1943.
  22. ^ John Morton: Operation Cauldron 1952. MRD Porton, England 1952.
  23. Stuttgarter Nachrichten. 17th February 1984.
  24. Nordwest-Zeitung . February 18, 1984.
  25. ^ Wilhelmshavener Zeitung . February 18, 1984.
  26. New Westphalian . February 27, 1984.
  27. North Bavarian Courier . February 27, 1984.
  28. Passauer Neue Presse . February 27, 1984.
  29. ^ Victor Schonfeld, Myriam Alaux: The Animals Film. England 1981.
  30. a b c Horst Stern : Tierversuche. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Reinbek near Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-17406-5 , p. 75.
  31. ^ Times of India . September 16, 1955.
  32. Hans Ruesch: Naked ruler. The undressing of medical science. Edition Hirthammer Tier- und Naturschutz-GmbH, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-921288-44-4 , p. 67.
  33. Herbert and Margot Stiller, Ilja Weiss: Deadly tests. Experiments with animals and humans. Edition Hirthammer Tier- und Naturschutz, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-921288-54-1 , p. 71.
  34. International Herald Tribune . November 7, 1978.
  35. Horst Szwitalski: ... the next victim please! In: stern. No. 35, August 24, 1978, p. 17.
  36. dpa, March 5, 1978.
  37. Donald J. Barnes: A Matter of Change. In: Peter Singer (ed.): Defends the animals - considerations for a new humanity. Paul Neff Verlag, Vienna 1986, pp. 238-252.
  38. ^ Science. Vol. 177. 1972.
  39. Herbert and Margot Stiller, Ilja Weiss: Deadly tests. Experiments with animals and humans. Edition Hirthammer Tier- und Naturschutz, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-921288-54-1 , p. 70.
  40. Associated Press. May 18, 1977.
  41. Munich Mercury . 2nd October 1981.
  42. Reuter: Malaysia prohibits the export of monkeys. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (S). No. 43, February 20, 1984, p. 9.
  43. World on Sunday . 19th February 1984.
  44. ^ Badische Zeitung . 20th February 1984.
  45. General-Anzeiger (Bonn) . 20th February 1984.
  46. Süddeutsche Zeitung . 20th February 1984.
  47. Frankfurter Neue Presse . February 21, 1984.
  48. Frankfurter Rundschau. February 21, 1984.
  49. dpa. July 28, 1983.
  50. ^ A b Herbert and Margot Stiller, Ilja Weiss: Tödliche Tests. Experiments with animals and humans. Edition Hirthammer Tier- und Naturschutz, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-921288-54-1 , p. 72.
  51. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 13, 1978.
  52. dpa. November 27, 1977.
  53. The Island of Tears. In: Der Spiegel. No. 41, October 9, 2000, pp. 193-194.
  54. The Island of Tears. In: Der Spiegel. No. 41, October 9, 2000, p. 200.
  55. Dirk Pohlmann: Mengeles Erben - human experiments in the Cold War. Germany 2009. Arte, May 14, 2013.