A petition for class certification was recently filed on behalf of eight individual disabled veterans and two non-profit veteran’s organizations that have been involved in a two year court battle with the U.S. military over the secret testing of chemical and biological weapons on soldiers.
The plaintiffs, including Vietnam Veterans of America and Swords into Plowshares, allege that none of the estimated 100,000 “volunteers” for the program provided their informed consent and that some of the testing was conducted on unwitting participants, according to Salem-News.com.
The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages, but has called for the overturning of the so-called Feres doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court decision that has served to insulate the federal government from liability under the Federal Torts Claims Act for claims brought by service personnel. The court dismissed this claim early in the case.
In addition, the plaintiffs are demanding the military notify participants what substances were tested on them, the method of administration and the known health effects. They are also seeking healthcare coverage for veterans who have suffered diseases or other conditions related to their participation in the program, Salem-News.com reports.
The research programs allegedly tested more than 400 different chemical and biological agents on soldiers during five decades of research, including anthrax, plague, tularemia, Q fever, dioxin and Agent Orange.
In an ongoing process, the plaintiffs have filed a series of motions challenging the defendants’ claims that key documents in the case are considered state secrets.
“The chem/bio veterans were used by the government many years ago and were discharged and abandoned. It is a national disgrace that must be made right,” Rick Weidman of the Vietnam Veterans of America said, Salem-News.org reports.
Readers are encouraged to visit the ‘Agent Orange Action Group’ at http://www.aoag.org for further information on Agent Orange.
Every time I see a post on the Feres Doctrine, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I should know because I have been down that same road too already. I even went to federal court in attempt to defend my case. Be aware that Feres also protects the US military from legal malpractice.
While I was on active duty with the US Army, I was threatened by a US Army lawyer named Captain Matthew Fitzgerald to do something which was contrary to the US Army legal regulations (which I did not know at the time but he did). Fitzgerald’s motive was to tout this as his first accomplishment on his annual performance report of which I later got a copy. This threat resulted in my losing over $50,000 of my personal funds.
When I asked the top lawyer (now Lieutenant General Dana Chipman) for assistance, the first thing they did was appoint Fitzgerald’s previous boss and a very obvious friend to “investigate.” Since there was no wrongdoing found as a result of this faux investigation but specifics were protected by the Privacy Act , I filed the same complaint with Fitzgerald’s Oregon State Bar which is NOT PROTECTED under privacy laws. Evidence showed that Fitzgerald lied no less than 10 times to his Oregon State Bar.
It was all thrown out of federal court due to Feres although I had a slam-dunk case with all evidence in my favor. In fact, I was never even able to get into court and present my case. The judge simply had his law clerks cut-and-paste a previous reply to a previous case. Just to add insult to my financial injury, Fitzgerald got promoted to Major. Feres was NEVER designed 60 years ago to protect against torts, corruption, misdeeds, and cover-ups by US Army lawyers. Today it protects against everything.