Britain Protocol

At present the Scandinavian countries are in the process of reconciling their system among themselves. Denmark, Finland, and Norway now have systems like that of Britain. In Sweden, however, a protocol must be submitted to the Health Ministry for each clinical study to be undertaken. Such a protocol must contain all animal work, including toxicology and, specifically, perinatal toxicology in at least one species. The Health Ministry finally evaluates the evidence after the protocols have been completed and, if it approves, grants permission to market. 

In substantiation, Dr. Yurkovsky cites the well-known law of pharmacology, called the Arndt-Schultz law, that low doses excite physiological activity, moderate doses favor it, but high doses retard or arrest it. An analogy is to Le Chatelier s principle, that chemical systems at equilibrium tend to resist imposed external effects. Further, there are the observations of Dr. Denis Parsons Burkitt, discoverer of Burkitt s lymphoma, about chemotherapy dosage levels. His viewpoint was that smaller is better (possibly serving to stimulate the immune system). It is a protocol favored in Britain but not in the United States. 

Japan followed America s example and refused to ratify (they finally did so in May 1970). In Europe, the various countries eyed one another cautiously. France ratified first, in 1926. Two years later, in 1928, Italy followed suit and a fortnight after her, the Soviet Union declared that she, too, considered herself bound by the Protocol. Only after Germany ratified in 1929 did Britain feel able at last to accept the Protocol on 9 April 1930, five years after the Conference, Britain at last fell into line. 

The Geneva Protocol had laid down firm controls over the use of gas in war. But the use of chemical weapons, like tear gas, by domestic police forces was a matter purely for national governments. Both the United States and Britain had established factories to manufacture CN gas after the First World War, and the British were soon using the gas against rioters in the colonies. The weapon which replaced it, and was used in Vietnam, CS gas,55 provides a nearperfect example of the way in which British chemical warfare research, despite its commitment to purely defensive uses, came to be applied to war. 

The events of 1940 and 1941 showed that when a country has its back to the wall it is unlikely to put obligations like the Geneva Protocol ahead of military expediency. If a nation s survival is at stake this is perhaps understandable. But as Britain s military position improved, Churchill s willingness to use gas did not diminish. On the contrary - within two years he would actually be pressing for the initiation of gas warfare. 

When in April 1930 Britain ratified the Protocol, it attached a two-part reservation to its instrument of ratification, which read ... 

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