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Stars and Stripes: Ex-Biological Warfare
Official: ‘It Scares The Living Hell Out Of Me’
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Ex-Biological Warfare Official: ‘It Scares The Living
Hell Out Of Me’
Mar 7, 2001
Dave Eberhart
Stars and Stripes Veterans Affairs Editor
William Patrick describes himself as an “old fossil” who hasn’t quite made it into the 21st century. Nevertheless, he’s on a mission to educate “first responders” about the awful prospect of bio-terrorism. Patrick, who lives in Frederick, Md., travels the country giving quick courses on his pet subject to emergency medical personnel, fire departments, sheriff’s offices and even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
They could spread the dry-powder anthrax on the rail tracks
of the Metro. The passing trains would launch it into the air.
· Patrick
“I’ll tell you, it scares the living hell out of me,”
he says, describing the potential for a terrorist action in the
Washington, D.C., area. “They could spread the dry-powder
anthrax on the rail tracks of the Metro. The passing trains would
launch it into the air. It would cause us considerable grief.”
Private Consultant
As a private consultant, Patrick went to Iraq after the Gulf War
to check for weapons of mass destruction. “I wasn’t
impressed with the Iraqi [anthrax] program,” he told The
Stars and Stripes.
So where is the danger?
Patrick lowers his voice slightly as he speaks of the “missing scientists.” After the breakup of the Soviet Union, dozens of top bio-warfare scientists disappeared, he says. “We can’t account for them.”
The concern is that this pool of bio-warfare talent now is working for Osama Bin Laden, the self-avowed enemy of America and reputed mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in New York City.
“I’m really the only one left from the old school,” Patrick says.
He refers to the Biological Warfare Laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. As chief of its Product Development Division, he was there when human testing began in 1954 that included the voluntary infection, treatment and monitoring of a group of Seventh Day Adventists with “incapacitating agents.”
The diseases induced in the testing included Q fever, a mild respiratory disease; tularemia, a mild infection of the lungs, and staphylococcal interotoxin B, another respiratory infection.
The testing ended abruptly in November 1969 when President Richard Nixon called a halt to America’s offensive bio-warfare campaign. “We destroyed everything,” Patrick said. “Twenty-two hundred people were out of a job.”
But Patrick was lucky, and stayed on to help with Nixon’s substitute program at Detrick to research protection against bio-warfare offensives initiated by rogue nations.
From this work arose the controversial anthrax vaccine, first developed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Detrick. According to Patrick, it was this vaccine that the BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Mich., eventually was authorized to manufacture for the Defense Department.
Sole Source
BioPort has since become the Pentagon’s sole source of the
vaccine, intended to protect U.S. troops from in the event of
an anthrax attack.
“I am a believer in the vaccine,” says Patrick, who was at Fort Detrick during its early testing and evaluation. “The Gulf War reawakened the public to the threat of biological warfare. If Saddam had used anthrax in the war, it would have been devastating.”
Retired since 1985, Patrick said he considers himself now to
be a lone ranger, bearing a warning to all who would listen.
To hear him, one must call 301-662-0031 (fax 301-631-1378). Patrick
does not have e-mail or a website.
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Last revised: March 2004