Форт-Детрик: Военная база и биологические исследования в США

Military base and biological laboratory in US

Fort Detrick ('/d//iː//t//r//ɪ//k/) is a United States Army Futures Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland. Fort Detrick was the center of the U. S. biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969. Since the discontinuation of that program, it has hosted most elements of the United States biological defense program. As of the early 2010s, Fort Detrick's campus supports a multi governmental community that conducts biomedical research and development, medical materiel management, global medical communications and the study of foreign plant pathogens. The lab is known to research pathogens such as Ebola and smallpox. Fort Detrick US Army facility is home to the U. S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), with its bio defense agency, the U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). It also hosts the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Frederick Campus, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research and is home to the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research (NICBR), National Interagency Biodefense Campus (NIBC), National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center and the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI). In August 2019, its deadly germ research operations were shut down following serious safety violations, in particular relating to the disposal of dangerous materials. Fort Detrick is the largest employer in Frederick County, Maryland.

Five farms originally constituted what is today known as "Area A" with , or the main post area of Fort Detrick, where most installation activities are located. "Area B" – known as "The Farm" and consisting of nearly – was purchased in 1946 to provide a test area west of Rosemont Avenue, then called Yellow Springs Pike. In addition, the post's water and waste water treatment plants comprise about on the banks of the Monocacy River.

Fort Detrick traces its roots to a small municipal airport established at Frederick, Maryland, in 1929. It was operated by a single person and the field was one of a string of emergency airfields between Cleveland, Ohio, and Washington, D. C., until 1938. The field was named in honor of squadron flight surgeon Major Frederick L. Detrick who served in France during World War I and died in June 1931 of a heart attack. The first military presence there was the encampment, on 10 August 1931 (two months after the Major's death), of his unit: the 104th Observation Squadron of the 29th Division, Maryland National Guard. The Squadron flew de Havilland observation biplanes and Curtiss JN 4 "Jennies". A concrete and tarmac airfield replaced the grass field in 1939, and an upgraded Detrick Field served as a Cadet Pilot Training Center until the country's entry into World War II. Detrick Field was formally leased from the City of Frederick in 1940 (having previously been leased from the state for just two weeks per year). The last airplanes departed Detrick Field in December 1941 and January 1942 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. All aircraft and pilots in the 104th and the cadet program were reassigned after the Declaration of War to conduct antisubmarine patrols off the Atlantic Coast. The 2nd Bombardment Squadron, U. S. Army Air Corps was reconstituted at Detrick Field between March and September 1942, when it deployed to England to become the nucleus of the new Eighth Air Force headquarters. Thereafter, the base ceased to be an aviation center. The airfields buildings, runway and tarmac have all disappeared which ran along today's Hamilton Street from Beasley Drive to about Neiman Street.

On 9 March 1943, the government purchased encompassing the original and re christened the facility "Camp Detrick". The same year saw the establishment of the U. S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL), responsible for pioneering research into biocontainment, decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent purification. The first commander, Lt. Col. William S. Bacon, and his successor, Col. Martin B. Chittick, oversaw the initial $1.25 million renovation and construction of the base.

During World War II, Camp Detrick and the USBWL became the site of intensive biological warfare (BW) research using various pathogens. This research was originally overseen by pharmaceuticals executive George W. Merck and for many years was conducted by Ira L. Baldwin, professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin. Baldwin became the first scientific director of the labs. He chose Detrick Field for the site of this exhaustive research effort because of its balance between remoteness of location and proximity to Washington, D. C. – as well as to Edgewood Arsenal, the focal point of U. S. chemical warfare research. Buildings and other facilities left from the old airfield – including the large hangar – provided the nucleus of support needed for the startup. The of Detrick Field were also surrounded by extensive farmlands that could be procured if and when the BW effort was expanded. The Army's Chemical Warfare Service was given responsibility and oversight for the effort that one officer described as "cloaked in the deepest wartime secrecy, matched only by the Manhattan Project for developing the Atomic Bomb". Three months after the start of construction, an additional $3 million was provided for five additional laboratories and a pilot plant. Lt. Col. Bacon was authorized 85 officers, 373 enlisted personnel, and 80 enlisted Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) members under two WAAC officers. At its peak strength in 1945, Camp Detrick had 240 officers and 1,530 enlisted personnel including WACs. After the defeat of Japan, the researchers working at Unit 731 were given immunity from prosecution. In return, director Shirō Ishii provided "8,000 slides of tissue from human and animal dissections" from the experiments, which were reportedly stored at Fort Detrick.

The elaborate security precautions taken at Camp Detrick were so effective that it was not until January 1946, four months after VJ Day that the public learned of the war time research in biological weapons. In 1952, the Army purchased over more of land located between West 7th Street and Oppossumtown Pike to expand the permanent research and development facilities. Two workers at the base died from exposure to anthrax in the 1950s. Another died in 1964 from viral encephalitis. There was 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 the production of antibiotics and other drugs. Building 470 was torn down in 2003 without any adverse effects on the demolition workers or the environment. The facility acquired the nickname "Fort Doom" while offensive biological warfare research was undertaken there. 5,000 bombs containing anthrax spores were produced at the base during World War II.

Camp Detrick was designated a permanent installation for peacetime biological research and development shortly after World War II, but that status was not confirmed until 1956, when the post became Fort Detrick. Its mandate was to continue its previous mission of biomedical research and its role as the world's leading research campus for biological agents requiring specialty containment. The most recent land acquisition for the fort was a parcel of less than along the Rosemont Avenue fence in 1962, completing the present
On Veterans Day, November 11, 1969, President Richard M. 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 made a statement outlawing offensive biological research in the United States. Since that time any research done at Fort Detrick has been purely defensive in nature, focusing on diagnostics, preventives and treatments for BW infections. This research is undertaken by the U. S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) which transitioned from the previous U. S. Army Medical Unit (USAMU) and was renamed in 1969. As he ended the offensive biological research done at Fort Detrick, Nixon pledged to make former laboratories and land available by the disestablishment of the offensive biological warfare program transferred to the U. S Department of Health and Human Services during the 1970s and later. The Frederick National Cancer Research and Development Center (now the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research) was established in 1971 on a parcel in Area A ceded by the installation. In 2009, author H. P. Albarelli published the book A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments about Frank Olson's death and the experiments conducted at Fort Detrick. The book is based on documents released under FOIA and numerous other documents and interviews to the police and investigators. In the 1980s and 1990s, KGB disinformation agent Jakob Segal claimed that Fort Detrick was the site where the United States government "invented" HIV. USAMRIID had been the principal consultant to the FBI on scientific aspects of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks, which had infected 22 people and killed five. While assisting with the science from the beginning, it also soon became the focus of the FBI's investigation of possible perpetrators (see Steven Hatfill). In July 2008, a top U. S. biodefense researcher at USAMRIID committed suicide just as the FBI was about to lay charges relating to the incidents. The scientist, Bruce Edwards Ivins, who had worked for 18 years at USAMRIID, had been told about the impending prosecution. The FBI's identification of Ivins in August 2008 as the Anthrax Attack perpetrator remains controversial and several independent government investigations which will address his culpability are ongoing. Although the anthrax preparations used in the attacks were of different grades, all of the material derived from the same bacterial strain. Known as the Ames strain, it was first researched at USAMRIID. The Ames strain was subsequently distributed to at least fifteen bio research labs within the U. S. and six locations overseas. In June 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency said it planned to add the base to the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country. as of 2008 about 7,900 people worked at Fort Detrick. The base has been the largest employer in Frederick County and contributed more than $500 million into the local economy annually. In 2020, a conspiracy theory regarding COVID 19 arose that alleged that the SARS CoV 2 virus was developed by the United States Army at Fort Detrick. This allegation has been promoted by Chinese government officials, most notably Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian, who has called for an inspection of the facility, although the allegation remains baseless. A petition organized by the Chinese Communist Party owned tabloid Global Times urging the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick for COVID origins reportedly amassed 25 million signatures.

Fort Detrick Area B is a 399 acre proving ground and was a disposal area for chemical, biological, and radiological material until 1970. In 2009, it was listed as a superfund site on the National Priorities List with four so called "source areas": chemical waste disposal pits, a landfill, the Area B Grid and the Area B 20 South burn area. There are 30 additional possible areas. Groundwater has been known to be contaminated with volatile organic compounds trichloroethylene (TCE) since 1992, as well as tetrachloroethene, both onsite and offsite. In 2012, the United States National Research Council published a report after reviewing two investigations of potential health hazards at Fort Detrick: a 2009 public health assessment conducted by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and a cancer investigation in Frederick County by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Frederick County Health Department. The report found neither study could show whether people were harmed by contaminated groundwater from Area B. It is unlikely that additional studies could establish a link, because no data on early exposures were collected and data cannot be obtained or reliably estimated now. A U. S. attorney representing Fort Detrick argued in July 2014 that nonexistent EPA regulation at the time is an exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act and "protects the Army's waste disposal practices". The $37 million lawsuit was dismissed in January 2015. After the Army denied claims of health problems in 106 Frederick families and individuals in February 2015, the residents filed a class action lawsuit, seeking $750 million for wrongful death and pain and suffering in August 2015.