Operation Whitecoat

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Operation Whitecoat was the name given to a secret operation carried out by the US Army during 1954-1973, which included conducting medical experiments on volunteers nicknamed as ‘White Coats’. The volunteers provided by the Seventh-day Adventist Church participated in the research by their own consent. The operation was planned to counter-race against the Soviet Union, as the US believed that the Soviets were also engaged in such activities. The motto of the experiments was to defend troops and civilians against biological weapons. The experiments were also alleged to be conducted on civilians, but to a lesser extent.^[1]

1 Experiments
- 1.1 Experiments on civilians
2 US report
3 See also
4 Notes
5 Further reading

[edit] Experiments

The white coats contributed to the operation by infecting their bodies with pathogens and germs, and then by testing the effectiveness of antibiotics and vaccines against illness. After the ‘subjects’ fell ill, they were given immediate medical treatment. These experiments took place at Fort Detrick which is a US army ran research center located in Washington DC.^[1]

[edit] Experiments on civilians

The medical experiments also included civilians even without their consent. Scientists tested biological pathogens like Bacillus globigii which they thought were harmless, at public places such as Subways. The scientists would drop light bulbs carrying Bacillus globigii on the New York Subway which was strong enough to make people prone to illness (also known as Subway Experiment).^[1]

[edit] US report

The United States Government Accountability Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, the United States Department of Defense and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:

Many experiments that tested various biological agents on human subjects, referred to as Operation Whitecoat, were carried out at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in the 1950's. The human subjects originally consisted of volunteer enlisted men. However, after the enlisted men staged a sitdown strike to obtain more information about the dangers of the biological tests, Seventh-day Adventists who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.^[2]