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The USBWL was created after Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1941 to review the feasibility of biological warfare (BW). The following year, the NAS reported that BW might be feasible and recommended that steps be taken to reduce U.S. vulnerability to BW attacks.
As the paper was written during Haldane's service during World War I, James F. Crow called it "the most important science article ever written in a front-line trench". [14] Haldane recalled that he was the "only officer to complete a scientific paper from a forward position of the Black Watch". [ 26 ]
World War II [b] or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war .
Despite the World War I-era interest in ricin, as World War II erupted, the United States Army still maintained the position that biological weapons were, for the most part, impractical. [2] Other nations, notably France, Japan and the United Kingdom, thought otherwise and had begun their own biological weapons programs. [2]
With the onset of World War II, the Ministry of Supply in the United Kingdom established a biological warfare program at Porton Down, headed by the microbiologist Paul Fildes. The research was championed by Winston Churchill and soon tularemia , anthrax , brucellosis , and botulism toxins had been effectively weaponized.
Immediately after World War II, researchers at Vanderbilt University gave 829 pregnant mothers in Tennessee what they were told were "vitamin drinks" that would improve the health of their babies. The mixtures contained radioactive iron and the researchers were determining how fast the radioisotope crossed into the placenta .
The Korean War (1950–53) added justification for continuing the program, when the possible entry of the Soviet Union into the war was feared. Concerns over the Soviet Union were justified, for the Soviet Union would pronounce in 1956 that chemical and biological weapons would, indeed, be used for mass destruction in future wars. [ 8 ]
Unethical human experimentation is human experimentation that violates the principles of medical ethics.Such practices have included denying patients the right to informed consent, using pseudoscientific frameworks such as race science, and torturing people under the guise of research.