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The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

279 points by tomkwok 11y ago

briandear 11y ago
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.
- DCoder 11y ago
  See also: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1....
- dsfyu404ed 11y ago
  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."
bayesianhorse 11y ago
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.
- stfu 11y ago
  I'd hope no democratic state would do such a thing in the current time. Wishful thinking. Let's hope we can meet again in 50 years and chat about the good old times.
  - bayesianhorse 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure that such a trial would come out within years. The wikileaks and Snowden affairs have shown that it is virtually impossible for a reasonably democratic state to keep such secrets for long.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      When was this "in between" you speak of? The cold war pretty much started with WWII.
      - UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
        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?
effdee 11y ago
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 11y ago
  They still do similar things in NYC: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Brookhaven-Gas-Subways-Chemical-Weapon-Study-Equipment-Installation-214692501.html http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Brookhaven-Gas-Sub...
  - metamet 11y ago
    But at least this time they announced it ahead of time?
staunch 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  The better joke might be that they found them to be ineffective.
onewaystreet 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... 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 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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.
abhinai 11y ago
"... 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.
- Kinnard 11y ago
  You still have faith left in our judicial system? Have you been on vacation? Comatose? Welcome back!
- spiritplumber 11y ago
  O_O
- dsfyu404ed 11y ago
  >rationale to this decision They probably argued that the test was more like surveying defenses than an experiment. i.e. "we need to try it because we need to know if we should be concerned about the Soviets doing it with seriously harmful bacteria." Additionally, when you do anything involving a group that large there's bound to be an few outliers. Winning the lottery, getting bitten by a shark and dying from complications caused by normally harmless bacteria are all incredibly uncommon but they still happen.
  - richcollins 11y ago
    Are you attempting to justify this? If I ran a "harmless" experiment over a population of 100M that happened to kill 10 or 20 "outliers" should I be exempt from consequences as well?
    - 67726e 11y ago
      I understand the vitriol, and I'm not even sure where I stand on the issue, but this quickly gets into a philosophical debate. This is something akin to the "railroad switch" question. Do you pull the level and divert a railroad car killing one person, but saving five or do you let the runaway care run its course and kill the 5. If the impetus for the experiment was to test some potential attack vector as the grandparent post suggests, would you rather they didn't risk some catastrophic attack? It's the notion of "the greater good" and all that. In writing this, I seem to have discovered my own answer. This is largely similar to the NSA going beserk as it has done because, "What if?". So do you want to risk & sacrifice for ostensibly better security?
akie 11y ago
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:9c7coIhY1eUJ:www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacterial-weapons-in-san-francisco-2015-7+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9c7coIh...
- voidz 11y ago
  I got it. What causes it?
iamben 11y ago
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.medicalscience http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalsc...
- halviti 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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?
      - emodendroket 11y ago
        > 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. That's true of essentially any source but I don't know that becoming ignorant of anything that happened during your lifetime is the right answer.
notNow 11y ago
Does this have anything to do with the measles outbreak and the ensuing vaccination/anti-vaccination debate in California?
- redletterdear 11y ago
  no; read the article it's in the 50's
  - Lingster 11y ago
    Damn! There goes my "Get those Hippies" theory..
- ypcx 11y ago
  No, this happened in a parallel universe with evil governments. No such thing in our universe.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  Yep. These bacteria are well known for causing measles after a six-decade incubation period.
- knodi123 11y ago
  I once drove my car during a flash flood, and wound up flooding the engine and ruining it. When my grandfather found out, he asked "Do you think this Osama Bin Laden guy could have had anything to do with it?" "No, Grandpa, but thanks for your concern. I don't think there's any mystery here."
- crpatino 11y ago
  Just marginally. AFAIK, the bacteria used in this experiment is not related to measles. However, there is the fact that the US government (all governments really) have repeatedly been found to inflict these kinds of nefarious deeds on their own people AND that they have a tendency to cover up those facts (not all governments are such hypocrites, some are proudly jerks) AND that the general public is often unaware or unwilling to admit it after the fact has been brought to light. So, this is the kind of thing that reinforces the world view of the AntiVaxer side. Every time you try to reason with them, the label "cover-up" comes to their mind and they just disengage and shut down whatever you are trying to convey. Keep trying long enough, and they will label you as a "sheep" (a member of the willingly unaware public) or a "wolf in sheep skin" (basically, and agent provocateur).
Houshalter 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
dmritard96 11y ago
that explains it...
contingencies 11y ago
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.
igonvalue 11y ago
> 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 11y ago
  It was a conspiracy. The evidence means it isn't a theory.
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    Still a theory, just a proven one.
golergka 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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-expected-soon-in-california-germ-warfre-case.html http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/15/us/judge-s-decision-expect...
  - golergka 11y ago
    > how you could possibly tolerate I never said I tolerated that. Also, I think that I explained all the "why's" behind my position pretty clearly in the original comment. > This is pure evil. This is bad. Labeling acts like this "pure evil" really diminishes the label.
- seanccox 11y ago
  They did it in St. Louis as well, and that was testing of an offensive chemical weapon. It's probably unwise to defer to military judgement when they want to test a chemical agent. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/suit-filed-over-government-test-spraying-in-st-louis-during/article_9bc1fc7d-7093-58a3-b557-0cbac5dc38ab.html http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/suit-fil...
brycemckinlay 11y ago
The bacteria in the air are what's responsible for the unique, delicious taste of San Francisco sourdough.
elchief 11y ago
So, do the astroturfers get a heads-up when articles like this appear so they can prepare?
- nsxwolf 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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.
  - elchief 11y ago
    You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know what's happening. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...
crimsonalucard 11y ago
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.
alexggordon 11y ago
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-toxic-dust-2012-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/army-sprayed-st-louis-with-to...
- alexggordon 11y ago
  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_USA_EN.pdf https://www.mpbio.com/includes/msds/ghs/en/MP_MSDS_219945_US...
fapjacks 11y ago
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...
CognitiveLens 11y ago
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.

279 points by tomkwok 11y ago

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.

DCoder 11y ago
See also: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1.html http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/1954USSR1....
dsfyu404ed 11y ago
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."

bayesianhorse 11y ago

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.

stfu 11y ago
I'd hope no democratic state would do such a thing in the current time. Wishful thinking. Let's hope we can meet again in 50 years and chat about the good old times.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure that such a trial would come out within years. The wikileaks and Snowden affairs have shown that it is virtually impossible for a reasonably democratic state to keep such secrets for long.
Shivetya 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    When was this "in between" you speak of? The cold war pretty much started with WWII.
    - UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
      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?

effdee 11y ago

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 11y ago
They still do similar things in NYC: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Brookhaven-Gas-Subways-Chemical-Weapon-Study-Equipment-Installation-214692501.html http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/NYPD-Brookhaven-Gas-Sub...
- metamet 11y ago
  But at least this time they announced it ahead of time?

staunch 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.
maxerickson 11y ago
The better joke might be that they found them to be ineffective.

onewaystreet 11y ago

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 11y ago
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_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio... 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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.

abhinai 11y ago

"... 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.

Kinnard 11y ago
You still have faith left in our judicial system? Have you been on vacation? Comatose? Welcome back!
spiritplumber 11y ago
O_O
dsfyu404ed 11y ago
>rationale to this decision They probably argued that the test was more like surveying defenses than an experiment. i.e. "we need to try it because we need to know if we should be concerned about the Soviets doing it with seriously harmful bacteria." Additionally, when you do anything involving a group that large there's bound to be an few outliers. Winning the lottery, getting bitten by a shark and dying from complications caused by normally harmless bacteria are all incredibly uncommon but they still happen.
- richcollins 11y ago
  Are you attempting to justify this? If I ran a "harmless" experiment over a population of 100M that happened to kill 10 or 20 "outliers" should I be exempt from consequences as well?
  - 67726e 11y ago
    I understand the vitriol, and I'm not even sure where I stand on the issue, but this quickly gets into a philosophical debate. This is something akin to the "railroad switch" question. Do you pull the level and divert a railroad car killing one person, but saving five or do you let the runaway care run its course and kill the 5. If the impetus for the experiment was to test some potential attack vector as the grandparent post suggests, would you rather they didn't risk some catastrophic attack? It's the notion of "the greater good" and all that. In writing this, I seem to have discovered my own answer. This is largely similar to the NSA going beserk as it has done because, "What if?". So do you want to risk & sacrifice for ostensibly better security?

akie 11y ago

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:9c7coIhY1eUJ:www.businessinsider.com/the-military-tested-bacterial-weapons-in-san-francisco-2015-7+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9c7coIh...

voidz 11y ago
I got it. What causes it?

iamben 11y ago

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.medicalscience http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalsc...

halviti 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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?
    - emodendroket 11y ago
      > 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. That's true of essentially any source but I don't know that becoming ignorant of anything that happened during your lifetime is the right answer.

notNow 11y ago

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

redletterdear 11y ago
no; read the article it's in the 50's
- Lingster 11y ago
  Damn! There goes my "Get those Hippies" theory..
ypcx 11y ago
No, this happened in a parallel universe with evil governments. No such thing in our universe.
emodendroket 11y ago
Yep. These bacteria are well known for causing measles after a six-decade incubation period.
knodi123 11y ago
I once drove my car during a flash flood, and wound up flooding the engine and ruining it. When my grandfather found out, he asked "Do you think this Osama Bin Laden guy could have had anything to do with it?" "No, Grandpa, but thanks for your concern. I don't think there's any mystery here."
crpatino 11y ago
Just marginally. AFAIK, the bacteria used in this experiment is not related to measles. However, there is the fact that the US government (all governments really) have repeatedly been found to inflict these kinds of nefarious deeds on their own people AND that they have a tendency to cover up those facts (not all governments are such hypocrites, some are proudly jerks) AND that the general public is often unaware or unwilling to admit it after the fact has been brought to light. So, this is the kind of thing that reinforces the world view of the AntiVaxer side. Every time you try to reason with them, the label "cover-up" comes to their mind and they just disengage and shut down whatever you are trying to convey. Keep trying long enough, and they will label you as a "sheep" (a member of the willingly unaware public) or a "wolf in sheep skin" (basically, and agent provocateur).

Houshalter 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.

dmritard96 11y ago

that explains it...

contingencies 11y ago

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.

igonvalue 11y ago

> 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 11y ago
It was a conspiracy. The evidence means it isn't a theory.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  Still a theory, just a proven one.

golergka 11y ago

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 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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-expected-soon-in-california-germ-warfre-case.html http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/15/us/judge-s-decision-expect...
- golergka 11y ago
  > how you could possibly tolerate I never said I tolerated that. Also, I think that I explained all the "why's" behind my position pretty clearly in the original comment. > This is pure evil. This is bad. Labeling acts like this "pure evil" really diminishes the label.
seanccox 11y ago
They did it in St. Louis as well, and that was testing of an offensive chemical weapon. It's probably unwise to defer to military judgement when they want to test a chemical agent. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/suit-filed-over-government-test-spraying-in-st-louis-during/article_9bc1fc7d-7093-58a3-b557-0cbac5dc38ab.html http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/suit-fil...

brycemckinlay 11y ago

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

elchief 11y ago

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

nsxwolf 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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.
- elchief 11y ago
  You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know what's happening. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

crimsonalucard 11y ago

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.

alexggordon 11y ago

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-toxic-dust-2012-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/army-sprayed-st-louis-with-to...

alexggordon 11y ago
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_USA_EN.pdf https://www.mpbio.com/includes/msds/ghs/en/MP_MSDS_219945_US...

fapjacks 11y ago

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...

CognitiveLens 11y ago

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.