Dstl100 Timeline

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1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1916 1920 1930 1940 1950s 1966 March – Porton Down Research starts on Porton Down scientists Porton Down site The Cold War Visit by the Duke of established; 3000 whole-body protection conduct tests on the expands and biological accelerates demand for Edinburgh; first Royal acres bought for War against mustard gas. London Underground to warfare research starts. a nerve gas detector. visit since King George V Department and used as assess vulnerabilities to in 1918. experimental ground. 1927 chemical or biological 1943 1953-55 General Service attack. Anthrax trials conducted Millions of new civilian 1969 1918 Respirator manufactured on Gruinard Island amid respirators manufactured Porton Down opens its September – King from Porton Down 1930 threat of bio-warfare following research at doors to the public for George V visits Porton design. Research continues from Germany. Porton Down. the first time to dispel Down. on design of defensive misconceptions about equipment, respirators 1946 the work carried out. and detectors. Porton Down scientists conduct research into 1939 war gases and nerve World War II starts. agents after Tabun is 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s FUTU discovered in Germany. RE Mid 1970s 1986 1997 2001 2012 FUTURE 90% of work undertaken Gruinard Island – used The Chemical Weapons Defence Evaluation Dstl provides support to Dstl breaks new at Porton Down now for Anthrax trials in 1943 Convention comes Research Agency the London Olympics. ground in chemical and published openly. – decontaminated. into force, requiring all splits into two separate biological defence and members to dispose of organisations – Dstl and 2013 emerging fields including 1978 1988 chemical weapons and QinetiQ. Dstl scientists test quantum technology, Georgi Markov Visit by USSR chemical their production facilities. samples from Syria for synthetic biology, cyber assassinated using a facility to Porton Down, 2003 Sarin. and big data. Ricin pellet injected into and vice versa. 1997 Operation TELIC (Iraq his thigh from the tip Porton Down Science war) results in the 2014 of an umbrella; Porton Park opens, allowing biggest deployment of Dstl scientists deploy Down scientists identify private companies to defence scientists in the to Sierra Leone to the toxin. co-locate at the site. field since World War II. help combat the Ebola outbreak. 1979 1999 2005 Microbiological Research Pathogen Handling Ploughshare Innovations 2015 Establishment (MRE) Laboratory opens. established to MOD launches Future moves to Public Health commercialise and Soldier Vision concept, Laboratory Service, with exploit Dstl’s intellectual developed by Dstl to reduction in biological property. preview the soldier of defence research. the 2020s..

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Nerve Agent - Lntellipedia Page 1 Of9 Doc ID : 6637155 (U) Nerve Agent
This document is made available through the declassification efforts and research of John Greenewald, Jr., creator of: The Black Vault The Black Vault is the largest online Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) document clearinghouse in the world. The research efforts here are responsible for the declassification of MILLIONS of pages released by the U.S. Government & Military. Discover the Truth at: http://www.theblackvault.com Nerve Agent - lntellipedia Page 1 of9 Doc ID : 6637155 (U) Nerve Agent UNCLASSIFIED From lntellipedia Nerve Agents (also known as nerve gases, though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature) are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals (organophosphates) that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by blocking acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that normally relaxes the activity of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. ...--------- --- -·---- - --- -·-- --- --- Contents • 1 Overview • 2 Biological Effects • 2.1 Mechanism of Action • 2.2 Antidotes • 3 Classes • 3.1 G-Series • 3.2 V-Series • 3.3 Novichok Agents • 3.4 Insecticides • 4 History • 4.1 The Discovery ofNerve Agents • 4.2 The Nazi Mass Production ofTabun • 4.3 Nerve Agents in Nazi Germany • 4.4 The Secret Gets Out • 4.5 Since World War II • 4.6 Ocean Disposal of Chemical Weapons • 5 Popular Culture • 6 References and External Links --------------- ----·-- - Overview As chemical weapons, they are classified as weapons of mass destruction by the United Nations according to UN Resolution 687, and their production and stockpiling was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993; the Chemical Weapons Convention officially took effect on April 291997. Poisoning by a nerve agent leads to contraction of pupils, profuse salivation, convulsions, involuntary urination and defecation, and eventual death by asphyxiation as control is lost over respiratory muscles.
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HA Lee, R Gabriel, AJ Bale, D Welch. Clinical Findings in 111 Ex-Porton
J R Army Med Corps 2004; 150: 14-19 J R Army Med Corps: first published as 10.1136/jramc-150-01-03 on 1 March 2004. Downloaded from Clinical Findings In 111 Ex-Porton Down Volunteers HA Lee, R Gabriel, AJ Bale, D Welch ABSTRACT clothing. Also there has been considerable Objective research into protective pre-treatments and To determine whether the health of treatments for chemical and biological agent Porton Down volunteers (PDV) has poisoning and the effects of exposure to low suffered as a result of their participation doses of chemical warfare and potential in medical trials, during which they threat agents. These have included mustard were exposed to single low dose con- blister agents, organophosphate derivatives centrations of chemical warfare agents. such as nerve agents, lachrymators, vomiting inductors, incapacitants and antidotes. It is Methods this latter category of studies that has Data were obtained from a self-selected attracted most concern from the popular series of ex-Porton Down volunteers media and public alike. who attended the MOD’s Porton Down Approximately 3,000 volunteers have Volunteers’ Medical Assessment Prog- participated in studies involving nerve agents ramme (PDVMAP). One hundred and and about 6,000 with mustard gas. Some eleven men attended with a mean age of individuals have been potentially exposed to 62 (range 37-81) years. Information ob- both agents. Participation in such studies did tained was analysed to determine whe- not necessarily involve exposure to the agent ther clinical diagnoses and symptoms concerned; for instance, some volunteers reported had any relationship to acted as ‘control’ and where protective chemical exposures.
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The Yellow Rain Affair Lessons from a Discredited Allegation
chapter four The Yellow Rain Affair Lessons from a Discredited Allegation matthew s. meselson and julian perry robinson U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, in a speech in West Berlin1 in September 1981 and in a detailed report to the Congress the following March,2 charged So- viet-backed Laotian and Vietnamese forces with waging toxin warfare against Hmong resistance fighters and their villages in Laos and against Khmer Rouge soldiers and villages in Cambodia. The charges were repeated with additional details in a further report to the Congress and to the member states of the United Nations in November 1982 by Haig’s successor, Secretary of State George Shultz.3 The investigation on which the allegation was based, however, failed to em- ploy reliable methods of witness interrogation or of forensic laboratory inves- tigation; it was further marred by the dismissal and withholding of contrary evidence and a lack of independent review. When the evidence for toxin attacks or any other form of chemical/biological warfare (CBW) was subjected to more careful examination, it could not be confirmed or was discredited. In what be- came known as the “Yellow Rain” affair, these charges—that toxic substances called trichothecenes were used in CBW—were initially pressed vigorously by the U.S. government and, even when the allegations proved unsustainable, they were not withdrawn. This chapter reviews all of the evidence adduced at the time that is now The Yellow Rain Affair 73 public, including a large body of material declassified and provided to us and others starting in 1986 under the Freedom of Information Act.
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PORTON DOWN MASTERPLAN Final Draft – January 2007 Page 1 of 60
PORTON DOWN MASTERPLAN TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................ 3 2. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 7 3. ORGANISATIONAL BACKGROUND AND FUTURE PROSPECTS ............................................ 9 3.1. SITE HISTORY ....................................................................................................................... 9 3.2. DSTL ..................................................................................................................................... 9 3.3. CEPR ................................................................................................................................. 11 3.4. PORTON DOWN SCIENCE PARK............................................................................................. 12 4. LAND USE PLANS....................................................................................................................... 15 4.1. CURRENT SITUATION............................................................................................................. 19 4.2. PROPOSED SITUATION IN 5YEARS ......................................................................................... 25 4.3. POSSIBLE SITUATION IN 10 YEARS AND BEYOND..................................................................... 29 5. EFFECTS OF FUTURE DEVELOPMENT...................................................................................
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The Czech President Searching for the Novichok in the Czech Republic
Kremlin Watch Report 14.04.2018 The Czech President searching for the Novichok in the Czech Republic Markéta Krejčí Kremlin Watch is a strategic program which aims to expose and confront instruments of Junior Analyst of the Kremlin Watch Program Russian influence and disinformation operations focused against Western democracies. The Czech President searching for the Novichok in the Czech Republic Timeline of Czech “involvement” in Skripal´s poisoning 17th RF MFA: 21st RF MFA: 26th Czech 4th March 23rd RF MFA: Czech Czechia Czechs capable of president orders chemical research Skripal´s among the developing toxic the intelligence utilized by NATO poisoning "most likely nerve agents to look for sources" Novichok 29th - alleged 4th April Russian Ambassy, Prague: Russian hacker 26th expulsion of 3 Czechia allowed to produce 10 kg of chemical warfare extradited to the Russian "diplomats" agents Zeman: UK should U.S. Nikulin case politically motivated (U.S. pressure), present evidence Zeman criticises no guarantees for Russian citizens the decision The double agent Sergei Skripal, retired Russian military intelligence officer sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006 after being accused of “high treason in the form of espionage” in favour of Britain, was among the spies that Russia exchanged with the US in 2010. According to the FSB, the Russian security service, the former GRU´s colonel Skripal had been providing classified information about several dozen Russian undercover officers to MI6 since the late ‘90s. The materials were then used for expelling Russian agents from multiple European countries.1 On the 4th of March, officer Skripal was found by a police officer in Salisbury lying unconscious alongside his daughter Yulia Skripal.
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Chemical Weapons
POSTNOTE Number 596 March 2019 Chemical Weapons Overview ◼ Chemical weapons use toxic chemicals for deliberate harm to humans or animals. ◼ Chemical weapons attacks take many forms, depending on the chemical agent, method of exposure, and the target. ◼ Many toxic chemicals that could be used as weapons also have legitimate uses. ◼ The Chemical Weapons Convention has driven efforts for disarmament and control. Chemical weapons are prohibited, but recent ◼ The Organisation for the Prohibition of chemical weapons attacks in Malaysia, Syria, Chemical Weapons oversees disarmament, Iraq and the UK have raised concerns about their use. This POSTnote gives an overview of monitors chemicals and investigates alleged chemical weapons, including modes of delivery attacks. and effects on human health. It also examines ◼ Incident response involves many agencies the status of international disarmament, and working to treat victims, minimise impacts, defence against chemical weapons in the UK. and support investigation. Background Chemical Weapons Defence Centre at Porton Down, which ‘Chemical weapons’ refers to the use of toxic chemicals to will include new chemical analysis laboratories.17 It also inflict deliberate harm to humans or animals. Chemical announced £11m to strengthen the UK’s response to weapons were first used on a large scale during World War chemical weapons attacks in March 2019.18 I, causing an estimated 90,000 deaths and 1.3 million Chemical weapons attacks can occur in different contexts, casualties.1,2 They are prohibited by the
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Full Text Document (Pdf)
Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Schmidt, Ulf (2017) Preparing for Poison Warfare: The Ethics and Politics of Britain’s Chemical Weapons Program, 1915–1945. In: One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences. Springer, pp. 77-104. ISBN 9783319516639. DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_6 Link to record in KAR http://kar.kent.ac.uk/65200/ Document Version Publisher pdf Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Preparing for Poison Warfare: The Ethics and Politics of Britain’s Chemical Weapons Program, 1915–1945 Ulf Schmidt Abstract Allied political and military leaders have frequently been credited both with considerable foresight and with strategic and moral leadership for avoiding chemical warfare during the Second World War. Scholars have not, however, fully acknowledged how close Allied forces came to launching a full-scale chemical onslaught in various theatres of war.
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Confidence Building Measure Return for 2010
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND Confidence Building Measure Return for 2010 (covering data for 2009) for the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and their Destruction, 10 April 1972 Submitted to the United Nations on 6 April 2010 DECLARATION FORM ON NOTHING TO DECLARE OR NOTHING NEW TO DECLARE FOR USE IN THE INFORMATION EXCHANGE Measure Nothing to declare Nothing new to declare A, part I A, part 2 (i) A, part 2 (ii) A, part 2 (iii) B (i) B (ii) C D E F √ G (Please mark the appropriate box (es) for each measure, with a tick.) Date: 6 April 2010 State Party to the Convention: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 2 Form A Part 1 Exchange of data on research centres and laboratories1 1. Names(s) of facility2 Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Porton Down. Declared in accordance with Form A Part 2(iii) 2. Responsible public or Ministry of Defence private organisation or company 3. Location and postal address Dstl Porton Down Salisbury Wiltshire SP4 0JQ 4. Source(s) of financing of the reported activity, including indication if the activity is wholly or partly financed by the Ministry of Defence Largely financed by the MOD. 5. Number of maximum containment units3 within the research centre and/or laboratory, with an indication of their respective size (m2) 2 BL4 labs, 256 m2 total 6. If no maximum containment unit, indicate highest level of protection Not applicable 7. Scope and general description of activities, including type(s) of micro-organisms and/or toxins as appropriate Research and development into protective measures as defence against the hostile use of micro-organisms and toxins.
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What Is Novichok? the Salisbury Poisoning Nerve Agent That's More Potent Than VX Gas
What is Novichok? The Salisbury poisoning nerve agent that's more potent than VX gas Source: telegraph.co.uk The nerve agent that poisoned Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yuliaand now a couple in Amesbury is one of the most deadly chemical weapons ever developed and was produced in secret by the former Soviet Union. Variants of the nerve agent Novichok are reported to be up to eight times more effective than VX nerve gas, that was deployed in the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February 2017. One of Novichok’s developers - a Russian scientist Vil Mirzayanov who fled to the US after turning whistle- blower - has said one of the variants had no known cure. Scientists at the defence laboratory at Porton Down, just seven miles from Salisbury, identified the use of Novichok as the weapon used in the attempted murder four months ago of Colonel Skripal, 66, a Russian double agent who sold secrets to MI6, and his 33-year-old daughter. On Wednesday, police said tests carried out at the Porton Down had established that Charles Rowley, 45, and his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, 44, had also been exposed to Novichok. Novichok - meaning ‘newcomer’ or ‘new guy’ - was developed in labs in the old Soviet Union from the 1970s through to the early 1990s. It is so sophisticated only a state would have the capability of manufacturing it - and only Russia has done so. That explains why Theresa May was able to say with certainty that the attempted assassination of Col Skripal was either ordered by the Kremlin or else the regime bears responsibility for allowing the chemical weapon to be stolen from its secret laboratory.
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1-S2.0-S0039914018303680-Main
Author’s Accepted Manuscript Advice on chemical weapons sample stability and storage provided by the Scientific Advisory Board of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to increase investigative capabilities worldwide Christopher M. Timperley, Jonathan E. Forman, Mohammad Abdollahi, Abdullah Saeed Al-Amri, www.elsevier.com/locate/talanta Isel Pascual Alonso, Augustin Baulig, Veronica Borrett, Flerida A. Cariño, Christophe Curty, David González Berrutti, Zrinka Kovarik, Roberto Martínez-Álvarez, Robert Mikulak, Nicia Maria Fusaro Mourão, Ramasami Ponnadurai, Slawomir Neffe, Syed K. Raza, Valentin Rubaylo, Koji Takeuchi, Cheng Tang, Ferruccio Trifirò, Francois Mauritz van Straten, Paula S. Vanninen, Volodymyr Zaitsev, Farhat Waqar, Mongia Saïd Zina, Marc-Michael Blum, Hugh Gregg, Elena Fischer, Siqing Sun, Pei Yang PII: S0039-9140(18)30368-0 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2018.04.022 Reference: TAL18561 To appear in: Talanta Received date: 10 February 2018 Revised date: 3 April 2018 Accepted date: 7 April 2018 Cite this article as: Christopher M. Timperley, Jonathan E. Forman, Mohammad Abdollahi, Abdullah Saeed Al-Amri, Isel Pascual Alonso, Augustin Baulig, Veronica Borrett, Flerida A. Cariño, Christophe Curty, David González Berrutti, Zrinka Kovarik, Roberto Martínez-Álvarez, Robert Mikulak, Nicia Maria Fusaro Mourão, Ramasami Ponnadurai, Slawomir Neffe, Syed K. Raza, Valentin Rubaylo, Koji Takeuchi, Cheng Tang, Ferruccio Trifirò, Francois Mauritz van Straten, Paula S. Vanninen, Volodymyr Zaitsev, Farhat Waqar, Mongia Saïd Zina, Marc-Michael Blum, Hugh Gregg, Elena Fischer, Siqing Sun and Pei Yang, Advice on chemical weapons sample stability and storage provided by the Scientific Advisory Board of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to increase investigative capabilities worldwide, Talanta, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2018.04.022 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication.
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Chemical Weapons
From the Toxipedia website in original form. Last updated by Toxipedia in 2014. Dr. Steve Gilbert, author. Chemical Weapons Overview The modern era of chemical weaponry began in the First World War and advances in synthetic chemistry led to the development of increasingly potent compounds such as Nerve Agents and VX. Chemical weaponry stockpiling was an integral part of the arms race throughout the Cold War and they were used during that time by Egypt, Iraq, and Iran. The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons for all signatories (all but 8 nations have signed). History Chemical Weaponry in Ancient, Medieval, and Pre-World War I The use of chemical compounds (as well as biological materials) dates back to biblical times. Greek historian Thucydides recorded use of Arsenic smoke by the Spartans against the Athenian city of Delium during the Peloponnesian War in 425 A.D. (#Tucker, 2006). Similar smoke was used during the Sung Dynasty by the Imperial forces in China. The Germans burned a mixture of bones coated in resin to produce a foul stench that would keep invaders at bay (#Hutchinson, 2003). The use of poisons fell out of favor in the 18th and 19th century. The British in the Crimean War rejected use of cacodyl Cyanide shells, dismissing them "as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy" (#Scott, 1997). In 1862 New York schoolteacher John W. Doughty wrote to the US Secretary of War suggesting methods of poison gas. This was dismissed and subsequently followed by a War Department General Order signed by President Abraham Lincoln stating that the use of poison should be "wholly excluded from modern warfare" (#Hutchinson, 2003).
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Russian Federation
OPCW Executive Council Fifty-Ninth Meeting EC-M-59/NAT.3 18 April 2018 18 April 2018 ENGLISH and RUSSIAN only1 RUSSIAN FEDERATION STATEMENT BY H.E. AMBASSADOR A.V. SHULGIN PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE OPCW AT THE FIFTY-NINTH MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL Mr Chairperson, I would like to start my speech with the words that belong to the great thinker Martin Luther, “A lie is like a snowball: the further you roll it, the bigger it becomes”. This wise aphorism is fully applicable to politics. He who has chosen the path of deception will have to lie again and again, making up explanations for discrepancies, spreading disinformation and doing forgery, desperately using all means to cover the tracks of the lies and to hide the truth. The United Kingdom has entered this slippery path. We can clearly see all of this on the example of the “Skripal case” fabricated by the British authorities, this poorly disguised anti-Russian provocation accompanied by an unprecedented propaganda campaign, taken up by a group of countries, and the finalized unprecedented expulsion of diplomats under a far-fetched pretext. Please, do not try to pass this group for the international community – it is far from that. It has already been a month since the Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May put forward some extremely serious accusations against Russia of the alleged use of chemical weapons. We have been waiting for an explanation for a long time, counting on our British colleagues to eventually back up these loud statements with some at least halfway intelligible facts.
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