Information on Nerve Gas Agents and Germ Testing

NERVE GAS AGENTS

Nerve agents enter the body through the respiratory system, skin and eyes. They are odorless and tasteless. One drop of nerve agent VX is lethal.

Symptoms of exposure are violent headaches, numbness, burning in legs, paranoia, mental confusion.

In seven tests, less than 63% of the nerve agent VX fell within the 4-mile test area. Other nerve agents tested were GA and GB.

In some tests, nerve agent VX was sprayed at a height of between 245 and 1,280 feet and speeds of between 341 and 550 mph.

On march 13, 1986, -- 6,000 sheep were killed in Skull Valley because they were in the downwind path of nerve agent VX.

GERM TESTS

There were at least 328 open-air germ warfare tests at Dugway Proving Ground (near Salt Lake City). Bacillus subtilis was the most-frequently tested germ. Initially the Army considered it a safe simulant but later found it to be hazardous to infants and the elderly and discontinued its use.

Q Fever coxiella Burnetti was tested in 1955. A cloud generator pushed the invisible Q fever (which can be deadly) toward 64 monitoring stations, 30 soldiers, 300 guinea pigs and 75 rhesus monkeys. Soldiers were flown to Fort Detrick, Md. For observation. There were no fatalities.