The Biology of Doom

"Few voices have been louder than the American government's in condemning the spread of biological weapons programs around the world. How astonishing, then, to discover that for thirty years the United States conducted its own large-scale covert biological weapons project. Ed Regis tells the story of this project from its origins in World War II to its abrupt cancellation in 1969. At its peak, the program employed 4,036 people, tested pathogens on more than 2,000 live human volunteers, and secretly conducted open-air pathogen tests on American soil. By its end, the project's scientists had weaponized three lethal biological agents and toxins and four incapacitating agents, covertly sprayed its own cities with bacterial aerosols, and had stockpiled more than two million biological bombs ready for deployment on the battlefield. Yet, surprisingly, almost nothing has been published about the program before now."--BOOK JACKET. "Based on 2,000 pages of declassified documents, and personal interviews with many of the original project's top scientists, this expose of America's last Cold War secret is both fascinating and shocking."--BOOK JACKET.