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- Written by: Lake County News reports
On Friday, Congressman Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) demanded that service members who were subjected to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) chemical weapon testing be able to receive full medical care and disability compensation for their service-connected medical conditions.
Thompson provided testimony along with former senior Navy officer and Humboldt County resident Jack Alderson at a field hearing in Sacramento of the Institute of Medicine Study Committee, which is charged with investigating the potential health impacts of the chemical weapons.
In late 2002, the DOD revealed for the first time that between 1962 and 1974 it had tested harmful chemical and biological agents by spraying them on ships and sailors.
These tests – known as Project 112, which included Project Shipboard Hazard and Defense (SHAD) – exposed at least 6,000 service members without their knowledge to harmful chemical and biological weapons and included some of the most deadly chemicals on Earth: Vx Nerve Gas, Sarin Nerve Gas and E. coli.
Many veterans who were subjected to chemical tests as part of Project 112/SHAD have developed serious medical issues but do not currently receive priority care from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or disability benefits because the VA does not officially recognize any long-term health consequences from exposure to the chemical agents from these specific tests.
In 2010, Congress passed a law requiring the VA to contract with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to consider the health impact on veterans that were part of Project 112/SHAD.
If the scientific study by the IOM finds a connection between the chemical testing and long-term health consequences, the VA will likely be compelled to provide all service members exposed to this testing priority medical care and full disability compensation. Thompson today submitted testimony to the committee.
“Our country must ensure that any service member who has become sick or developed a disability because of these tests is provided with the treatment they deserve and benefits they’ve earned,” said Thompson. “We cannot wait any longer. Many brave men who served our country are now sick or have passed away because of Project 112’s chemical and biological testing. It is our duty to right this wrong and get our service members the care they need.”
In 2002, Congress directed the IOM to conduct a study of the health effects associated with the chemicals used during Project 112/SHAD.
Numerous reports by other agencies and departments within the U.S. government, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, say exposure to these substances have long-term health consequences.
However, after five years of research the IOM study found no connection existed between the substances tested and the health problems now widely seen among known SHAD veterans.
As a result, the VA does not recognize any long-term health consequences from the Project 112/SHAD tests.
The IOM has since conceded that the first study did not adequately sample the full universe of Project 112/SHAD veterans, and that the study panel could not obtain sufficient information to assess levels of exposure to specific agents.
The initial study also failed to account for the job and duty assignments of various personnel on board all the ships and tugs involved in the chemical testing. Because of this, the first study failed to take into account the different levels of exposure.
For instance, some personnel were exposed during training and testing to multiple weapons, experimental vaccines, trace elements, stimulants, and decontamination agents, whereas other personnel would have had limited exposure because of where they were stationed. For these reasons, Congress passed a 2010 law requiring a second study.
Alderson was in charge of five different light tug operations from 1964 to 1967. As a senior officer, Alderson was notified of some military chemical tests performed on animals on his ship while he was in service.
Once he started getting sick, he asked Thompson to investigate whether or not there could be a link between his health problems and Project 112/SHAD.
It was found that the DOD performed experimental tests by spraying live chemical and biological agents on ships and sailors to test the Navy’s vulnerability to toxic warfare.
Alderson commanded some of the ships used in these experiments. He has since been diagnosed with malignant melanoma, several types of skin cancers, prostate cancer and doctors have found four occurrences of Asbestos in his lungs.
“Jack, and all the people who served with him, deserve to know the truth,” said Thompson. “If we don’t get these service members the care they need, then how can we ask our current service members to put their lives on the line knowing that harm from the enemy may not be the only danger they encounter? It is imperative for us to right our governments past wrongs and help these brave veterans who were unknowingly subjected to these tests.”
For more information about Project SHAD and Alderson's story, see this Lake County News story from May 2008: http://bit.ly/A55Q89.
For more information on the IOM study click here: http://iom.edu/Activities/Veterans/SHADII.aspx.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A man reported missing last week is safe, police said Saturday.
Darayn S. Schweizer, 44, of Moses Lake, Wash., was reported missing from Lakeport last Thursday,
Feb. 23, after he was last seen in the area of Third and Park streets, as Lake County News has reported.
The Lakeport Police Department reported that officers received a telephone call at approximately 4:45 p.m. Saturday from Santa Cruz County Behavior Health Unit confirming Schweizer was there and in good health.
Schweizer was reportedly picked up by a relative from the behavior health unit and returned home, police said.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
An agricultural fire that got out of control last Thursday in Napa County came under full containment Saturday morning, fire officials said.
The Soda Fire burned approximately 200 acres in the 3200 block of Soda Canyon Road, according to Cal Fire. No structures were burned.
On Saturday, approximately 95 fire personnel, five engines, five fire crews and one bulldozer from Cal Fire, Napa County Fire and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation were on scene, taking part in patrolling and mop up, Cal Fire said.
The rugged and steep terrain, and Thursday's winds, had made fighting the fire difficult, according to Cal Fire.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Dr. Tony Phillips
With a pair of bug-eyes swiveling on a stalk nearly 8 feet off the ground, the six-wheeled, 1800-pound Mars rover Curiosity doesn’t look much like a human being.
Yet, right now, the mini-Cooper-sized rover is playing the role of stunt double for NASA astronauts.
“Curiosity is riding to Mars in the belly of a spacecraft, where an astronaut would be,” explained Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “This means the rover experiences deep-space radiation storms in the same way that a real astronaut would.”
Indeed, on Jan. 27, Curiosity’s spacecraft was hit by the most intense solar radiation storm since 2005.
The event began when sunspot AR1402 produced an X2-class solar flare. On the “Richter Scale of Solar Flares,” X-flares are the most powerful kind.
The explosion accelerated a fusillade of protons and electrons to nearly light speed; these subatomic bullets were guided by the sun’s magnetic field almost directly toward Curiosity.
When the particles hit the outer walls of the spacecraft, they shattered other atoms and molecules in their path, producing a secondary spray of radiation that Curiosity both absorbed and measured.
“Curiosity was in no danger,” said Hassler. “In fact, we intended all along for the rover to experience these storms en route to Mars.”
Unlike previous Mars rovers, Curiosity is equipped with a Radiation Assessment Detector.
The instrument, nicknamed “RAD,” counts cosmic rays, neutrons, protons and other particles over a wide range of biologically-interesting energies.
RAD’s prime mission is to investigate the radiation environment on the surface of Mars, but researchers have turned it on early so that it can also probe the radiation environment on the way to Mars as well.
Curiosity’s location inside the spacecraft is key to the experiment.
“We have a pretty good idea what the radiation environment is like outside,” said Hassler, who is the principal investigator for RAD. “Inside the spacecraft, however, is still a mystery.”
Even supercomputers have trouble calculating exactly what happens when high-energy cosmic rays and solar energetic particles hit the walls of a spacecraft. One particle hits another; fragments fly; the fragments themselves crash into other molecules.
“It’s very complicated,” said Hassler. “Curiosity is giving us a chance to actually measure what happens.”
Even when the sun is quiet, Curiosity is bombarded by a slow drizzle of cosmic rays – high-energy particles accelerated by distant black holes and supernova explosions.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 27 X-flare, RAD detected a surge of particles several times more numerous than the usual cosmic ray counts.
Hassler’s team is still analyzing the data to understand what it is telling them about the response of the spacecraft to the storm.
More X-flares will help by adding to the data set. Hassler expects the sun to cooperate, because the solar cycle is trending upward toward a maximum expected in early 2013.
As of February 2012, “we still have six months to go before we reach Mars. That’s plenty of time for more solar storms,” Hassler said.
A stunt double’s work is never done.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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