United States Chemical Defense

Sources of pubHcations in the United States Chemical Propulsion Information Agency, AppHed Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Md. and Defense Documentation Center. 

EDF (Environmental Defense Fund), Toxic Ignorance The Continuing Absence of Basic Health Testing for Top-Selling Chemicals in the United States, Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, DC, 1997. 

Yockey DJ, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition). United States Chemical Programs. Washington, DC Department of Defense 12 Jul 1990. Memorandum For Secretaries of the Military Departments, et al. 

Molecular modeling has evolved as a synthesis of techniques from a number of disciplines—organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, physical chemistry, chemical physics, computer science, mathematics, and statistics. With the development of quantum mechanics (1,2) ia the early 1900s, the laws of physics necessary to relate molecular electronic stmcture to observable properties were defined. In a confluence of related developments, engineering and the national defense both played roles ia the development of computing machinery itself ia the United States (3). This evolution had a direct impact on computing ia chemistry, as the newly developed devices could be appHed to problems ia chemistry, permitting solutions to problems previously considered intractable. 

Annual Proceedings of the Safety Seminars, Dept, of Defense, Explosive Safety Board, Washington, D.C. International symposia on explosives and closely related subjects are excellent sources of information, ie, international symposia on detonation symposia on combustion symposia on chemical problems connected with the stabiUty of explosives international pyrotechnics seminars symposia on compatibiUty of plastics and other materials with explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics, and processing of explosives, propellants, and ingredients and symposia on explosives and pyrotechnics Mineral Industy Surveys, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, Pa. Periodic pubhcations dedicated primarily to explosive studies in Propellants and Explosives Journal of Ha yardous Materials, and apparent consumption of industrial explosives and blasting agents in the United States. 

In the United States, Hquid HLW from the reprocessing of defense program fuels was concentrated, neutralized with NaOH, and stored in underground, mild steel tanks pending soHdification and geologic disposal (see Tanks AND PRESSURE VESSELS). These wastes are a complex and chemically active slurry. Suspended in the supernatant Hquid are dissolver soHds which never went into solution, insoluble reaction products which formed in the tank, and salts which have exceeded their solubiHty limit. The kinetics of many of the reactions taking place are slow (years) so that the results of characterization... 

United States Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense. Medical Management of Chemical Casualties Handbook. 3rd Edn. Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD United States Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense, July 2000. 

United States Defense Intelligence Agency. Iraq-Kuwait Chemical Warfare Dusty Agent Threat. Serial Number DSA 350-90. Filename 73349033, October 10, 1990. http //desert-storm.com/ Gulflink/950719dl.txt. 2003. 

Environics produces chemical sensors, detectors, and detection systems for protection of people, the environment, and for space research. Their sales network covers more than thirty countries all over the world. Currently, in the United States, they are marketing the ChemPro 100 for both military and civil defense, as well as other chemical detection gear. 

In the postwar years a spirit of "chemical boosterism," to use a term coined in a recent historical study, emerged in the United States. A group of chemists, chemical journalists and science popularizers acted as propagandists for the chemical profession and industry. Their message, delivered with conviction to the public through a variety of popular publications, was that chemistry was vital to the national defense and to economic progress. One of the more active of these chemical boosters was Charles Holmes Herty, and his efforts to establish a national institute for drug research must be viewed within this context (11). 

The bearded dragon, Pogona vitticeps, from Australia enjoys increasing popularity as a pet in the United States. The species comes from a geographical area lacking very potent chemical defenses in insects. Consequently, the bearded... 

One approach to the discovery of new insecticides which fulfill the criteria of efficacy, safety, selectivity, etc., is through the study of the natural chemical defenses of plants. Extracts of plants have been used as Insecticides by humans since before the time of the ancient Romans, a practice that continues today with many of the 2000 species of plants known to have insecticidal properties (4-5). The use of insecticidal" plants is especially prevalent among subsistence farmers since plants grown locally are cheaper, and sometimes more accessible, than synthetic chemical pesticides. Commercially, however, only a few of these plants. Including those containing pyrethrins, rotenoids, and alkaloids, have been used to any extent in the United States as sources of insecticides (6-8). 

Environmental Defense Fund (1997) Toxic ignorance The continuing absence of basic health testing for top-selling chemicals in the United States , www.environmentaldefense.org,... 

In recent years Chile has fallen foul of both the United States (because a grape crop allegedly contained cyanide De Bievre 1993) and the European Union (because shrimp that contained cadmium below the limit of defensible detection was rejected), and each time Chile suffered losses in the millions of dollars. In a survey of users of analytical chemical results, the Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC) in the United Kingdom found that 29% of the respondents to a survey had suffered loss as a result of poor analytical chemistry, and 12% of these claimed very serious losses (King 1995). 

It is the policy of the United States to develop and maintain a defensive chemical and biological capability so that United States military forces can operate for some period of time in a toxic environment if necessary to develop and maintain a limited offensive capability in order to deter all use of chemical... weapons by the threat of retaliation in kind and to continue a programme of research and development in this area to minimise the possibility of technological surprise.13... 

Chemical Defense Establishment of the British War Office, was part of a larger effort by scientists in the United Kingdom and United States to explore the pharmacological and clinical aspects of mustard gas injury (Beale 1993).9 The first successful results appeared in April 1941. A year later Auerbach and Robson delivered their initial report of these experiments to the British Ministry of Supply. The report was considered confidential, however, and British censors delayed full disclosure of their findings until the war s end.10 In the interim, but still a full three years after completion of their initial experiment, Auerbach and Robson managed to publish a half-page research note in Nature (Auerbach and Robson 1944). That brief communication is remarkable mainly as an artifact of the British wartime security apparatus and less as an announcement heralding an important scientific discovery. 

The U.S. Army, as the executive agent for the U.S. Department of Defense, selected incineration as the preferred method of stockpile destruction for the first U.S. chemical agent disposal facility. The Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS) was located on Johnston Island, southwest of Hawaii, operated throughout the 1990s, and has since been demolished. The first disposal facility in the continental United States is the still active Tooele Chemical Agent... 

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