Project 112 was a biological and chemical weapons experimentation project conducted by the US Army from 1962 to 1973. The project started under John F. Kennedy's administration, and was authorized by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, as part of a total review of the US military. The name of the project refers to its number in the review process. Every branch of the armed services contributed funding and staff to the project.
Experiments were planned and conducted by the Deseret Test Center and Deseret Chemical Depot at Fort Douglas, Utah. They were designed to test the effects of biological weapons and chemical weapons on service personnel. They involved unknowing test subjects, and took place on land and at sea via tests conducted upon unwitting US Naval vessels. The existence of the project (along with the related Project SHAD) was categorically denied by the military until May 2000, when a CBS Evening News investigative report produced dramatic revelations about the tests. This report caused the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to launch an extensive investigation of the experiments, and reveal to the affected personnel their exposure to toxins. See Deseret Chemical Depot.
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In a report issued in 2008, the General Accountability Office scolded the military for its lackluster effort to identify and find the victims of Project 112. According to the GAO report, in 2003 the military arbitrarily ended its attempts to find victims, even in the face of some veteran advocates' attempts to find hundreds of other veterans whose illnesses might have been caused or aggravated by their exposure to chemical and biological agent loaded munitions.[1]
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