Fort Detrick

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Fort Detrick is a United States Army Medical Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland, USA. It supports a multi-govermental community that conducts biomedical research and development, medical materiel management, global medical communications and the study of foreign plant pathogens. It is home to the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), with its U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), as well as to the National Cancer Institute-Frederick (NCI-Frederick). It will be home to the planned National Interagency Biodefense Campus.

Fort Detrick is the largest employer in Frederick County, Maryland.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Detrick Field (1931-1943)

[edit] Camp Detrick (1943-1956)

[edit] Fort Detrick (1956-2007)

[edit] Biological warfare research

Starting during the World War II, Fort Detrick became the site of intensive biological warfare research using various pathogens; this research was originally overseen by pharmaceuticals executive George W. Merck. There is a building on the base, building 470 locally referred to as Anthrax Tower. Building 470 was a pilot plant for testing optimal fermentor and bacterial purification technologies. The information gained in this pilot plant shaped the fermentor technology that was ultimately used by the pharmaceutical industry to revolutionize production of antibiotics and other drugs. Building 470 was torn down in the early years of the 21st century without any adverse effects on the demolition workers or the environment, i.e. the anthrax spores had been starved out after being sealed inside for over twenty years.

On Veterans Day, November 11, 1969, President Richard Nixon asked the Senate to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons. Nixon assured Fort Detrick its research would continue. On November 25, 1969, Nixon signed an executive order outlawing offensive biological research in the United States. Since then any research done at Fort Detrick has been purely defensive in nature, such as treatments for infections.

[edit] Biological tests performed on Seventh-day Adventists

The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD 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 (sic) who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.[1]

[edit] Conspiracy theories

Some AIDS conspiracy theorists, notably Jakob Segal, claim that Fort Detrick was the site where the United States government invented HIV.

[edit] Tenant units and organizations

Each branch of the U.S. military is represented among Fort Detrick’s 7,800 military, federal and contractor employees. Four cabinet level agencies are represented by activities on the garrison: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and of course the U.S. Department of Defense.

The following units and organizations (military and otherwise) are located on the Fort Detrick installation:

U.S. Department of Defense

  • U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC)
  • 114th Signal Battalion
  • 21st Signal Brigade
  • 302nd Signal Battalion
  • 6th Medical Logistics Management Center (6MLMC)
  • Company A, 1st Satellite Control Battalion (SATCON)
  • Air Force Medical Logistics Office (AFMLO)
  • Air Force Medical Support Agency, Global Medical Support Training and Exercises (AFMSA/SGPX))
  • Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC)
  • Chemical Biological Medical Systems (CBMS), Joint Project Management Office
  • Company B, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division Marine Forces Reserve
  • Defense Contract Management Agency, DCMA Baltimore
  • Detachment 1, 301st Signal Company (Cable & Wire)
  • Joint Medical Logistics Functional Development Center (JMLFDC)
  • Joint Readiness Clinical Advisory Board (JRCAB)
  • Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care (MC4)
  • Naval Medical Logistics Command (NMLC)
  • Technology Applications Office (TAO)
  • U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research (USACEHR)
  • U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command, Fort Detrick Engineering Directorate

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

  • The National Cancer Institute at Frederick (NCI-Frederick), a satellite facility of the NCI

U.S. Department of Agriculture

  • Foreign Disease Weed Science Research Unit

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans' affairs December 8, 1994 John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman.[1]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


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