VA named in lawsuit involving local veteran

New accusations from military veterans who were unwitting subjects in drug testing between 1950 and 1976 add the department of Veterans Affairs to the list of participants in what they call “a chilling tale of human experimentation.”

In July 2009, six veterans and two veteran advocacy organizations filed suit against the Department of Defense, U.S. Army and Central Intelligence Agency, asking for healthcare for physical damages sustained during drug testing and freedom from oaths of secrecy they were forced to take.

Among the plaintiffs is Jacksonville resident Frank Rochelle, who, as a young soldier in 1968, signed up for a temporary duty assignment in Edgewood, Md., that would change his life. Rochelle was told he’d be testing new military equipment; instead, he was dosed and injected with a number of powerful drugs, including Atropine, a drug with hallucinogenic side effects, and a drug similar to the canabinoid THC. After one dose, he said, he hallucinated for days, cutting himself with a razor to gouge out what he thought were bugs running under his skin.

He sought legal representation last year when, at age 61, health side effects including anxiety disorder, memory loss, breathing disorders and heart problems made holding his job aboard Camp Lejeune too difficult. When Gordon Erspamer of the San Francisco law firm Morrison and Foerster took the case, the issue got much larger than winning one vet his healthcare.

The updated complaint, dated June 7, alleges that at least 7,800 American troops were used to test between 250 and 400 chemical and biological agents with a variety of purposes, including incapacitation, altering an individual’s state of mind or personality, and increasing susceptibility to brainwashing, to name a few. The suit also alleges for the first time that the VA was a party to these actions — guilty of what are largely crimes of omission: failure to notify veterans who participated in the experiments of risks to their health and incompletely informing those who were notified.

“Neither the DVA nor other Defendants have made even a semblance of a comprehensive effort to identify or notify veterans exposed to chemical and biological weapons at other locations than the Edgewood Arsenal,” the suit reads. “Likewise, the DVA has not compiled any information concerning veterans who were the subject of brain implants or mind control experiments.”

According to the suit, only 15 percent of veterans exposed to mustard gas agents were notified by the VA, and only 30 percent of those dosed with chemical or biological weapons were. Information sent to those who were notified discouraged them from seeking disability compensation or VA healthcare, the complaint alleges.

Rochelle said he had no idea what might be revealed when he first filed suit.

“I was totally unaware in the beginning that the VA was involved with any of this, just like I was unaware of everything we’ve uncovered since this lawsuit came about,” he said. “Since I was instrumental in acquiring the attorneys, all I was trying to do is get healthcare for things that have happened due to Edgewood. Doing that has opened a whole keg of worms, so to speak.”

The founder of VAWatchdog.org, Larry Scott, said this is a case that will not go down without a fight. Although many “test vets” have difficulty proving which drugs they were dosed with, Scott said the small number of those who have received VA health benefits demonstrates the department’s culpability.

“All you have to do is look at the numbers. Of the test vets, only two have received benefits, and of (those dosed with mustard gas) only 11 have received benefits. That’s an atrocity in itself,” Scott said. “There’s an old expression about the Veterans Benefit Administration: ‘Delay, deny, and hope that I die.’”

For Rochelle, he hopes for justice, but his faith in his country has been shaken.

“Just being a dumb country boy off the farm, I trusted my government,” he said. “I trusted the people in charge of me.”

VA officials said it is policy not to comment on pending litigation.

Contact military reporter Hope Hodge at 910-219-8453 or hhodge@freedomenc.com. Visit the Lejeune Deployed blog at www.lejeunedeployed.freedomblogging.com.