Part III - Historical Survey of the Porton Down Service Volunteer ...

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The Biology Committee met in June 1953 to discuss the lessons that should be drawn from the severe case of poisoning and the fatality [73]: • first aid treatment needs to be revised urgently, as the Holger-Neilson method of artificial respiration cannot be given to men suffering from nerve gas poisoning, and administering atropine by IV injection is not practicable; the secretion of mucus in the airways needs to be studied, as it complicates the use of artificial respiration; • the cough reflex in humans normally clears mucus from the airways, but the reflex appears to be abolished by nerve gas action. A means should be found of restoring the cough reflex. The CDAB accepted these conclusions later in the year [74]. In making suggestions for first aid treatment for nerve gas poisoning in 1952, it was admitted that no-one had anticipated convulsions being so great as to make atropine injections and artificial respiration "extremely difficult to perform". The report of the main human study [66] during which the severe case of poisoning and the fatality occurred notes that no-one whose ChE inhibition was less than 80% showed any signs or symptoms of systemic GB poisoning. It therefore includes a table giving details of the exposures after which a ChE inhibition of greater than 80% was observed. Of the 14 men who had a ChE inhibition of over 80%, 7 did not present symptoms that required treatment. The 14 cases where inhibition exceeded 80% are reproduced below (Table 8.7.) and are all from 1953. 76 ChE inhibition (%) Dose Details Date of Exposure 83 300 mg on bare skin 29 January 94 300 mg on one layer of serge 10 February 90 250 mg on one layer of serge 16 February 83 250 mg on bare skin 9 March 87 250 mg on bare skin 16 March 81 300 mg on bare skin 23 March 87 200 mg on one layer of serge 30 March 87 200 mg on one layer of serge 30 March 93 300 mg on one layer of serge 22 April 85 300 mg on one layer of serge 27 April 94 300 mg on one layer of serge 27 April 87 200 mg on layer of serge and layer of flannel 4 May 82 200 mg on layer of serge and layer of flannel 6 May 96 200 mg on layer of serge and layer of flannel 6 May Table 8.7. Occurrences of ChE inhibition of more than 80%.
9.1 Adrian Committee Chapter 9. G Agents: 1954 to 1989 The Adrian Committee reported in August 1953 [1], recommending the conditions under which human experiments with nerve agents could resume. The recommendations were accepted by the Service ministries: the Royal Navy in November 53 [2], the Army in December 53 [3] and the RAF in January 54 [4]. Porton was notified of the agreement to resume tests and the conditions imposed [5]: • tests to be confined to GB (the reasons for this restriction are not given); • experiments with vapour not to exceed 15 mg/min/m 3 ; • application to skin or to clothing on skin not to exceed 5 mg per man; • tests to be conducted in normal (non-tropical) temperatures; • tests to be conducted in the absence of arduous exercise. The Adrian Committee report made few detailed comments on the conditions it recommended [1]. • "Without experiments with GB vapour it would be impossible" to evaluate therapies against nerve agents. The report does not say why the maximum dose of 15 mg.min/m 3 was chosen. Perhaps it reflected the 1950/51 assessment that a GB vapour dose of "14 mg.min/m 3 may be near the maximum to which men, even when breathing quietly, may safely be exposed without protection" [6] and dosages of GB vapour of 15 mg.min/m 3 cannot "be far removed from the lower limit of the zone of incapacitation" [7]. • The wide variation in response to the same dose of liquid GB placed on the skin or on clothed skin was recognised in the report. The report noted that a dose of 100 mg was safe but far more could be learned by using small doses of up to 5mg of radioactive GB liquid. The committee felt that it "should be possible to use small doses (outside the toxic range) to induce minor reductions in ChE and then extrapolate to infer doses which give dangerous reductions". Human studies with nerve agents were resumed on 21 May 1954. 9.2. G Studies after 1954: "New Terror" The defence budget was reduced in 1956 and the Services withdrew their requirements for nerve agent weapons [9]. CDAB inferred in February 1957 [10] that research would concentrate on CW defensive equipment. The review of the CW field in the early 1960s [11], which Chiefs of Staff approved [13], recommended that the Services be fully protected against CW attacks, and also prompted interest in incapacitating agents. The defensive recommendation meant that work on nerve agent therapy was important [14, 15]. Indeed, a higher priority had been placed on this work in 1954 when nerve agent tests with GB resumed [16, 17], but the interest in incapacitating agents and the emergence of a new nerve agent inevitably diverted effort from GB work. In 1953 a new series of nerve agents, called V agents, was discovered. By November 1955, V agents were known to be highly toxic in vapour form and when penetrating skin [18]. The discovery of V agents was hailed as "probably the most outstanding advance of the year [1955]" across all the fields of defence science [19], and there was a tendency to regard GB as "old fashioned" [18]. CDAB commented in June 1956 that "the G nerve gases had been the major terror a few years ago, now V agents were the new terror" [20]. 77
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Page 17 and 18: lood supply. Nine of the 14 men who
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Page 43 and 44: The second study with volunteer med
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Page 47 and 48: References Chapter 8 1. WO32/21200
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