Don Via Jr., The Free Thought Project
Waking Times

Despite some of the tireless coverage from those of us in the independent media over the years, there still seems to be a contingent of holdouts clung to the idea that their own government would not intentionally put the well being of its citizens at risk. Particularly with regard to the closing out of 2020, it seemed no better a time to provide some historical context to the contrary.

We will begin with example from the prohibition era of the previous century, in 1928. The United States government in an attempt to act as the sole arbiter of morality took it upon themselves to defy the basic human right of self ownership and prohibited the consumption of alcohol nationally. Naturally, this was not received well by millions of individuals who believed it was their inherent right to decide what they could and could not ingest in their own bodies.

As prohibition often does, this led to a boon in black market industry of speakeasies and bootleg alcohol manufacturing and distribution. Of course the all powerful government, ever influenced by its messiah complex did not respond well to this act of defiance. How dare the peasantry exercise their rights as free thinking individuals? Thusly the government took the only next reasonable step it could think of — to poison its own citizens.

That’s right, rather than come to the logical conclusion that people should be allowed to decide what’s best for them, the federal government decided in an ill-fated attempt to enforce compliance of state-mandated moral guidelines to “save people from themselves”, to contaminate millions of barrels of alcohol with poison to dissuade people from drinking it.

This seems outlandish but it is indeed a well-documented historical fact that, as pointed out in a previous article from TFTP, has been entirely scrubbed from the history books. The reason for this historical purge is quite clear when one reads into the consequences of this repulsive policy. As it has been estimated that due to this state-sponsored poisoning campaign, over 10,000 Americans lost their lives as a direct result from being murdered by their government for the “crime” of consuming alcohol.

Just this one instance alone, arguably the most repugnant atrocity the United States government has ever perpetuated on its own citizenry, should be enough for people to realize they should never blindly believe that the bureaucracy is a benevolent figure acting on behalf of their well-being. Unfortunately though, as we will see this is only one of several examples of the predator class purposefully endangering the health of the public that they had been trusted to protect.

Our next example is somewhat better known, yet just as egregious. A project known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The Tuskegee program ran from 1932 to 1972, conducted out of Tuskegee University in Alabama by the United States Public Health Service & the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The aim of the program was to observe the natural progression of syphilis in African American men, and while entirely unethical was also deeply rooted in the racist ideologies of the pre-civil rights era. Specifically targeting poor and disenfranchised black communities of Macon County, Alabama as unknowing & unconsenting test subjects.

The individuals were coerced into the program after being told they were being treated for having “bad blood”, and promised free medical care. Over 600 men were involved in the study, more than half of which had syphilis yet remained undiagnosed despite treatments such as penicillin already being readily available at the time. They were instead treated with placebos.

For 40 years the PHS and CDC intentionally withheld medical care during this program and allowed this disease to ravage people and communities with zero regard for public safety or basic moral standards. And as a result, as one study noted, has had a long-standing and negative psychological impact on American black communities.

The Tuskegee Study abused public trust, and left many infected men to die and led to the infection of several others including wives and children who could have been saved from contracting the debilitating disease. All under the observation of supposedly trusted public health authorities.

Dishearteningly, however, this is not an isolated incident. As bad as these repugnant practices from the CDC are, they are not the only agency to engage in them. Since the end of the second world war ushered in the age of the military-industrial-complex, and the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, they too have conducted illegal and unethical experimentations against unconsenting American citizens.

Official documents declassified over the decades exemplify that these projects are innumerable, and a total disregard for public health and safety is government standard practice, despite their cover-up and assertion to the contrary.

A few pertinent examples include —

• Operation Sea Spray, a biological warfare experiment carried out by the United States Navy in the San Francisco Bay area in 1950. The Navy released clouds contaminated with the bacteria serratia marcescens & bacillus globigii into a city of 775,000 inhabitants. The aim of the operation was to track the dispersal of biological agents in a major metropolitan area, as initially the Navy believed the bacteria was not harmful to humans. That all changed a week after the initial release however, when residents began flooding hospitals suffering from unknown adverse reactions ranging from the minor to severe. At least one man is officially known to have died. And it has been noted the program likely permanently altered the microbial ecology of the area.

 

• Operation Large Area Coverage was a mass biological attack simulation carried out by the United States Army Chemical Corps from 1957 to 1958. Throughout the American Midwest from the Gulf of Mexico into Canada, it covered thousands of square miles. The goal of the experiment was to test dispersal patterns of biological agents and involved releasing compounds known to be radioactive and carcinogenic, primarily zinc cadmium sulfide among other harmful bacteria. Tens of thousands of Americans were unknowingly exposed to these compounds. Two cities where these tests were concentrated – St Louis, Missouri and Corpus Christi, Texas – received such heavy plumes of the contaminated aerosols they created an artificial overcast over the cities. To which point military officials deceptively informed the localities that they were merely conducting smokescreen tests. To this day St. Louis residents suffer from adverse health effects allegedly attributed to the experiments they were subjected to, ranging from respiratory illnesses to cancer.

 

• Project MK ULTRA.
  This may very well be the most notorious of anything mentioned in this article. Almost anyone may have likely heard of MK Ultra at one point or another. Though it is unlikely that many have done the extensive research necessary to fully grasp the treachery of this infamous operation. Documentation about MK Ultra and its numerous sub-projects is scarce, due to several documents pertaining to it having been ordered destroyed by Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms under the Nixon Administration. However those that do remain still paint quite grim picture. There were various sub-programs associated with the project that spanned the course of nearly two decades. Some the names being MK Naomi, MK Often, MK Search, MK Delta, and Artichoke, just to name a few. The operations had various goals and aims ranging from behavioral modification, to psychological manipulation, to the development of biological and chemical weapons and much much more. Through their duration the CIA relied heavily on both willing and unwilling participants who were subjected to various methodologies including but not limited to; psychological abuse, electroshock, physical torture, and being subjected to mind altering drugs. At least one death can be attributed to the program, Dr. Frank Olson, who committed suicide by jumping through the window of a high-rise building while on a CIA induced overdose of LSD.

All of the known officially released documents pertaining to MK Ultra and it’s sub programs have been obtained and painstakingly catalogued by the hard work of researcher John Greenwald on his website The Black Vault.

While one may look to these examples and believe them to be few and far between, in reality that is the farthest thing from the truth. In 1977 an investigation published in the Washington Post confirmed the Military had conducted 239 secret open air germ warfare tests just between 1949 & 1969. These included releasing bacteria in Washington bus terminals and airports, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the New York subway system. This is known to be one of the most egregious among them given the sheer volume of people exposed. The illegality of these experiments is quite clear, as they completely violate the stipulations of the Nuremberg Code, requiring voluntary informed consent for all research participants.

Some others among these tests worthy of mention are Operation Dew I & Dew II, which were similar to Large Area Coverage in that they released large quantities of zinc cadmium sulfide over several states in the southeastern United States; Operation Big Itch, an entomological warfare experiment utilizing weaponized ticks that is suspected to have contributed to the spread of Lyme disease; Operation May Day, Operation Drop Kick, Operation Big Buzz, & Operation Bellwether, all of which were experiments to determine the potentiality to disseminate biological agents via the release of mosquitoes.

Some Army documents claim the released insects were uninfected. However the Army’s long history of research into yellow fever and dengue fever, as well as the subsequent outbreaks of the viruses in the same public areas used as testing grounds has led some researchers to theorize these programs contributed to the spread of these diseases throughout the United States.

This suspicion can be plausibly corroborated in that same article from The Post, when then Senator and future Secretary of Health and Human Services, Richard Schweiker (R-Pa.), testified at a Senate subcommittee hearing saying — “It is very risky indeed to assume that any living organism, reduced to germ warfare size and released in a populated area, is ever safe.”. That same report also confirmed that hundreds of military personnel and their families had contracted infections from the pathogens intentionally released on US military installations.

Undoubtedly, the reader may look at these numerous examples and say to oneself “but most of these happened in the 60s and 70s. They certainly couldn’t still be endangering the public on such a scale now”. But this is not the case either. As noted in a previous TFTP article, a recent study from 2018 found that these dismal practices are indeed being allowed to continue. —

“While the idea that the U.S. government would willingly poison its own citizens may seem shocking to some, it is not unprecedented. Earlier this year, a study found that the Pentagon has contaminated more than 40,000 sites across the United States, exposing hundreds of thousands of Americans to dangerous chemicals.

The investigation, which was conducted by ProPublica and Vox, revealed that by testing and disposing of deadly chemical weapons in the United States, the Pentagon has “poisoned drinking water supplies, rendered millions of acres of land unsafe or unusable, and jeopardized the health of often unwitting Americans.”

And in another piece, this time from 2017, we covered the story of a small Oklahoma town outraged that the Department of Homeland Security announced they would be conducting chemical spraying operations over the town. In what a DHS press release stated would be to —
“gather data that enhances our predictive capabilities in the event of a biological agent attack”. All too reminiscent of disastrous programs of decades past.

At the previous mention of US service members & families also succumbing to these poisons, it brings me to my next point of transition. Despite the dire circumstances alluded to already, the American public are not the only ones utilized as unknowing guinea pigs or sacrificial lambs for the governments unethical experimentations & criminal negligence. Often times it is their own soldiers that are the first to suffer the consequences.

Many of the previous programs mentioned above did involve some degree of testing on military personnel but there have been several specifically dedicated to it. The first that comes to mind is Project112/ SHAD (Shipboard Hazzard and Defense). From 1962 to 1973 the SHAD project was conducted on the number of US Naval vessels to determine their ability to detect and respond to acts of biological chemical warfare. So, naturally, the United States military actually carried out an act of biological warfare against its own sailors.

In 2000, the Department of Defense became required to begin declassifying the documents of the project. These “tests” consisted of exposing approximately 6000 of their fighting men to numerous pathogens via released aerosol. Including sarin gas, and VX. Two of the most dangerous neurological agents known today. Despite numerous veterans filing complaints about the negative health effects they have suffered since, including some developing cancer, the Department of Veterans Affairs still asserts “there is no clear evidence of specific, long-term health problems associated with participation in Project SHAD”.

Sadly enough, this seems to be a regular pattern. As almost identical instances have occurred over the years, particularly in Vietnam with the usage of Agent Orange. While the DoD was comfortable committing war crimes in the South Pacific, they were also totally okay with exposing their own to the same deadly agents simultaneously.

Agent Orange was a powerful herbicidal chemical weapon, said to be “one of the deadliest concoctions ever created”, used indiscriminately against combatants and civilians alike in Vietnam. The disastrous effects of this toxin have been suffered by victims and administrators alike, who have not only felt the effects themselves but been witness to entire generations of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren born with the biological effect as well. Birth defects, heart conditions, leukemia, cancer, just to name a few have all plagued those and the descendants of those exposed to this ungodly weapon of mass destruction.

Even more disheartening is the fact that the same scenario is still being played out today in similar fashion. The company contracted to create Agent Orange, Monsanto (arguably one of the most dastardly corporations to ever exist), is still alive and well, still canoodling with government officials to maintain their monopoly, and still poisoning people.

In 2018 TFTP reported the landmark verdict in San Francisco which ruled Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide contained carcinogenic additives. What’s more, internal documents released during the trial proved that Monsanto knew the danger this chemical posed to the public, and covered it up regardless. Furthermore, in the same year the company merged with pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG — which has its own sinister history, including intentionally releasing drugs to the public contaminated with HIV.

To continue, despite the folly of Agent Orange it seems the military brass still has refused to learn a lesson from its own abhorrent history. The same methods, with a similar circumstance, are still being carried out to this day. Since the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan the usage of burn pits as the primary means of disposal for any and all trash and toxic waste has led to hundreds of thousands of American veterans that served in the Middle East in the past 20 years coming home developing respiratory and other illnesses due to the noxious fumes they were exposed to. An estimated 3.5 million veterans have been exposed to toxic burn pits and yet just as the case was with agent orange the VA still vehemently denies an overwhelming majority of these claims.

While operations involving the military and intelligence agencies are some of the most poignant instances, they’re far from the only ones. If targeting unknowing and unconsenting members of the general public, as well as their own dedicated fighting men and women wasn’t bad enough, a number of these institutions made it a point to target even more vulnerable members of society. Carrying out countless tests against persons incarcerated by the state, who were unable to object. And even worse still, specifically experimenting on children.

The cases of illegal experimentation carried out on prisoners and children – often orphaned, hospitalized, or mentally disabled – on behalf of both government and corporate entities are sickeningly abundant. This began with the Manhattan Project in the forties and lasted decades.

Newborn babies were injected with radioactive material, mentally challenged children were fed radioactive oatmeal, both in accordance with an experiment carried out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Quaker Oats, and the Atomic Energy Commission. Irradiating the testicles of prisoners causing sterility and cancer; Vanderbilt University and the US Public Health Service dosing pregnant women with radiation without their knowledge; patients given high doses of radiation resulting in violent hemorrhaging, cancer, and premature death conducted by the University of Cincinnati Medical School — are but a few examples of the more than 100 experiments carried out on 9,000 subjects mentioned in this 1995 Los Angeles Times exposé.

Overall a total of 4,000 radiation experiments — conducted on an estimated 20,000 unwitting victims had been carried out during this time period, claims the Alliance for Human Research Protection.

As stomach-churning as these revelations are, one must also keep in mind that those cases are only pertaining to radiation experiments. Those numbers still aren’t counting the various other kinds of tests and or mishaps that have occurred and were subsequently covered up.

Other miscellaneous yet no less relevant instances are equally as abominable. One that comes to mind in particular is the ghastly history of eugenics. In short, Eugenics is a ethnically biased selective breeding pseudoscience that originated in the United Kingdom, and found prominence in the United States in the 20th century.

The American eugenics movement was even referenced during the post World War II Nuremberg trials as having played a role in inspiring practices of the Holocaust. Though it has been largely whitewashed from modern American history books, Eugenics was openly accepted and practiced in America’s medical establishment for over 70 years, starting in 1909.

Having not only played a role in the segregationist policies of the Jim Crow era, but also resulting in the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of American citizens, mostly lower class women, who were deemed “unfit for breeding”. This was carried out not by some fringe group, but as signed and approved by government legislature, and supposedly trusted public health authorities as an openly accepted common practice of the American medical establishment for the better part of a century.

This short section alone doesn’t nearly due the justice of fully elaborating the terrible scope of this obscene chapter of American history. I genuinely implore the reader to read the previous three cited sources to gain a better comprehension it this ignored portion of our not-so-distant past.

However even more grotesque is the documented fact that these practices have carried over into the modern day in a limited capacity. For years stories have emerged of unapproved sterilizations still taking place, particularly in California women’s correctional facilities. And just earlier this year, a whistleblower came forward from one of Georgia’s immigrant detention facilities alleging that ICE had carried out hundreds illegal hysterectomies against detainees.

To close out this chronicling I would like to include just one last item. In my article prior to this I covered the story of a lawsuit involving the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer suing a man who had claimed to be injured by one of their products. In it, for context I also included quite a bit of history of a number of those entities involved highlighting their history of blatant wrong doing.

For relevancy I would like to shortly expand upon that here, as the history of those kind of activities is not a newly recent one. But in fact stretches back as far as many of these previously mentioned instances. For example, 1955 saw what was known as The Cutter Incident. When in San Francisco a mishap occurred in a laboratory developing the first polio vaccine. As a result tens of thousands of children received a jab contaminated with the live polio virus. 40,000 ultimately contracted the disease, hundreds were left paralyzed, and 10 died. This was a tragedy specifically attributed to human error, that may have possibly been avoided had lab workers scrutinized their colleagues just a little more heavily.

Despite some increases in oversight, this scenario would repeat itself on two more notable occasions. Between 1955 and 1963 once again polio vaccine development saw a horrible mishap occur. Hundreds of thousands of doses of the vaccine had become contaminated with a virus contracted from research macaques, called Simian Virus 40 (SV40) — known to be a probable carcinogen.

Decontamination procedures were not carried out properly, thusly the shot administered to 98 million Americans still carried the SV40 virus. Despite constant reassurance from the CDC that this was harmless, a 1999 study from the National Institute of Health concluded — “Our analysis indicates increased rates of ependymomas (37%), osteogenic sarcomas (26%), other bone tumors (34%) and mesothelioma (90%) among those in the exposed as compared to the unexposed birth cohort.”

Finally, one must bring attention to the 1976 “fiasco”, as The New York Times puts it. In 1976, the Gerald Ford Administration was led to believe they were on the verge of a swine flu pandemic that would kill millions. However the evidence to substantiate this was scarce to say the least — and ultimately, it never happened. However this didn’t stop Ford and Congress from pushing through a mandate requiring a vaccine be rushed into production. In the end the entire campaign did more harm than good; Economically, with its strain on funds. Civilly, what is blatant disregard for civil liberty. And medically, as hundreds were harmed by the vaccine itself. As Discover magazine explained —

“Due to the urgency of creating new immunizations for a novel virus, the government used an attenuated “live virus” for the vaccine instead of a inactivated or “killed” form, increasing the probability of adverse side effects among susceptible groups of people receiving the vaccination. Furthermore, prominent American scientists and health professionals began questioning the campaign’s large expense and its drain on scarce public health resources.

With President Ford’s reelection campaign looming on the horizon, the campaign increasingly appeared politically motivated. The rationale for mass vaccination seemed to stem from only the barest of biological reasoning — it turned out that the flu wasn’t even related to the virus that caused the grisly 1918 epidemic and, indeed, those who were infected with the flu only suffered from a mild illness while the vaccine, for the reasons stated above, resulted in over four-hundred and fifty people developing the paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome.”

Consequently, the original NY Times article said it best — “The blame for such a result will have to fall on the politicians and bureaucrats who formed policy so hastily early this year, scorning the few voices that expressed skepticism and sought to raise questions about the program.”

As I conclude I wish to state even with as extensive as this article is it should be stressed that these are only a fraction of examples of these programs/ incidents. Admittedly, while writing I had a hard time deciding what to include or exclude due to the sheer volume examples found while researching for this piece.

Doing further in-depth study of these subjects indicate examples of public endangerment and criminal negligence like this number in the thousands and span much of our history. Case and point, even just this May, The Free Thought Project shared an article from The Rutherford Institute that provided examples of several more instances itself — including the military’s race-based testing of mustard gas on troops, & FEMA “inadvertently”  exposing 10,000 first responders to the deadly compound ricin.

This report was an exhaustive one. And the track record is a repugnant one, but a clear one. Paired with critical analysis it shows perfectly why one would be very wise to always heavily scrutinize any of these institutions, particularly in times when they are demanding blind faith and unquestioning obedience.

We didn’t find out about the heinous acts committed between the 40s & 60s, until the 70s. And another decade to learn about the atrocities committed then. So on & so forth. And in the present day we are only just now learning about the health hazards subjected to the public in the 2000s. Transparency and accountability are not virtues that we can allow it to fall to the wayside. It begs the question that should be seen as a tale of caution — what are we being exposed to now, that they will neglect to tell us for another 20 years?

A word to the wise my friends, always practice due diligence. Healthy skepticism can be your best friend, and perhaps even save your life.

About the Author

Don Via Jr. is an independent researcher and journalist from central Virginia, who has dedicated the last ten years to studying history, political science, geopolitics, and covert operations, and raising awareness about government corruption and abuses. He is the founder of the up-starting independent media outlet Break The Matrix, where more of his work can be found as well as on associated social media on MeWe, Twitter, and Minds.

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