Restitution and Reform
Throughout its exposure of harmful biological and chemical testing programs, Freedom and the Church of Scientology also took measures to ensure survivors of the testing programs were located and assisted, and campaigned to eradicate the use of chemical and biological weapons.
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Freedom’s exposure of the testing of “BZ” – a drug 100 times as potent as LSD – on unwitting American servicemen led to U.S. Army measures to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles and to provide restitution to victims. | |
At a September 24, 1979 press conference on Capitol Hill with BZ survivors who came forward in response to Freedom’s campaign, California Congressman Ronald Dellums issued a statement asking Defense Secretary Harold Brown for “a full explanation as to why there has been no medical follow-up for the thousands of servicemen who underwent testing with drugs ... in spite of repeated reports of long-range ill effects currently being suffered by these men and their families.”
The Army had maintained the position that there had been no follow-ups on tests involving BZ because the drug had no long-term effects. But in late 1979, it announced its own program to find and notify all persons who had been unwitting participants in these covert psychiatric operations. A press wire at the time stated that the “Army’s action followed a concerted campaign by the Church of Scientology, which located a number of veterans who underwent experiments with LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs....”
Meanwhile, Freedom’s exposes continued. In April 1981, the Army announced it had destroyed a small portion of its BZ stockpile and was developing long-range plans to burn it all.
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