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Fort Detrick

Fort Detrick is a U.S. Army Medical Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland, USA. Its 1,200 acres (5 km²) support a multi-governmental community that conducts biomedical research and development, medical material management, global medical communications and the study of foreign plant pathogens. It is home to the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), with its U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), as well as to the National Cancer Institute-Frederick (NCI-Frederick). It will be home to the planned National Interagency Biodefense Campus.

Fort Detrick is the largest employer in Frederick County, Maryland.

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History

Five farms originally constituted what is today known as “Area A”, or the main post area of Fort Detrick, where most installation activities are located.

Detrick Field (1931-1943)

Fort Detrick traces its roots to Detrick Field, the small municipal airport established at the site in the 1930s. The field was named in honor of Squadron Surgeon Major Frederick L. Detrick who served in France during World War I and died in June 1931. The first military presence there was the encampment, on 10 August 1931 (two months after the Major's death), of the 104th Aero Squadron of the Maryland National Guard. Detrick Field was a cadet pilot training center until December 1941. The 2nd Bombardment Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps was reconstituted at Detrick Field between March and September 1942, when it deployed to England to become the nucleus of the new Eighth Air Force headquarters.

Camp Detrick (1943-1956)

The U.S. Biological Laboratories, responsible for pioneering research into decontamination, gaseous sterilization, and agent purification, were established at Detrick Field, re-christened Camp Detrick, in 1943.

Biological warfare research

During World War II, Camp Detrick became the site of intensive biological warfare (BW) research using various pathogens; this research was originally overseen by pharmaceuticals executive George W. Merck. There was a building on the base, Building 470 locally referred to as "Anthrax Tower". Building 470 was a pilot plant for testing optimal fermentor and bacterial purification technologies. The information gained in this pilot plant shaped the fermentor technology that was ultimately used by the pharmaceutical industry to revolutionize production of antibiotics and other drugs. Building 470 was torn down in 2003 without any adverse effects on the demolition workers or the environment. The facility acquired the nickname "Fort Doom" while offensive biological warfare research was undertaken there.

Biological tests performed on Seventh-day Adventists

The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied hundreds of thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:

Many experiments that tested various biological agents on human subjects, referred to as Operation Whitecoat, were carried out at Fort Detrick, Maryland, in the 1950s. The human subjects originally consisted of volunteer enlisted men. However, after the enlisted men staged a sitdown strike to obtain more information about the dangers of the biological tests, Seventh-Day Adventists (sic) who were conscientious objectors were recruited for the studies.^[1]

Fort Detrick (1956-2007)

Camp Detrick became Fort Detrick in 1956, continuing its mission of biomedical research and its role as the world’s leading research campus for biological agents requiring specialty containment.

On Veterans Day, November 11, 1969, President Richard Nixon asked the Senate to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons. Nixon assured Fort Detrick its research would continue. On November 25, 1969, Nixon signed an executive order outlawing offensive biological research in the United States. Since that time any research done at Fort Detrick has been purely defensive in nature, focusing on diagnostics, preventives and treatments for BW infections. This research is undertaken by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), transitioned from the Biological Laboratories and re-named in 1969.

Many former laboratories and some land made available by the disestablishment of the offensive BW program were ultimately transferred to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services during the 1970s and later. The National Cancer Research and Development Center (now the National Cancer Institute-Frederick) was established in 1971 on a 69 acre parcel in Area A ceded by the installation.

Conspiracy theories

In the 1980s and '90s, some AIDS conspiracy theorists, notably Jakob Segal, claimed that Fort Detrick was the site where the United States government invented HIV.

Tenant units and organizations

Each branch of the U.S. military is represented among Fort Detrick’s 7,800 military, federal and contractor employees. Four cabinet level agencies are represented by activities on the garrison: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and of course the U.S. Department of Defense.

The following units and organizations (military and otherwise) are located on the Fort Detrick installation:

U.S. Department of Defense

U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC)
- U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency (USAMMA)
- U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity (USAMMDA)
- U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA)
- U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)
- Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC)

114th Signal Battalion
21st Signal Brigade
302nd Signal Battalion
6th Medical Logistics Management Center (6MLMC)
Company A, 53rd Signal Battalion (SATCON)
Air Force Medical Logistics Office (AFMLO)
Air Force Medical Support Agency, Global Medical Support Training and Exercises (AFMSA/SGPX))
Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (AFMIC)
Chemical Biological Medical Systems (CBMS), Joint Project Management Office
Company B, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division Marine Forces Reserve
Defense Contract Management Agency, DCMA Baltimore
Detachment 1, 301st Signal Company (Cable & Wire)
Joint Medical Logistics Functional Development Center (JMLFDC)
Joint Readiness Clinical Advisory Board (JRCAB)
Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care (MC4)
Naval Medical Logistics Command (NMLC)
Technology Applications Office (TAO)
U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research (USACEHR)
U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command, Fort Detrick Engineering Directorate

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The National Cancer Institute at Frederick (NCI-Frederick), a satellite facility of the NCI

U.S. Department of Agriculture

Foreign Disease Weed Science Research Unit

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security

National Bioforensic Analysis Center (NBFAC)
National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), scheduled to open in 2008

Historic sites on Fort Detrick

Fort Detrick has three sites (and four structures) on the National Register of Historic Places:

The Nallin Farm House (circa 1835)
The Nallin Farm Springhouse and Bank Barn (pre-1798)
The One Million Liter Sphere, the “Eight Ball” (1947-48)

In addition, the following sites on the installation are of historic interest:

A rocky knoll overlooking Frederick, and located near the Old Farm Gate (northwest gate) of Ft Detrick, was the site of historic structures. The Novitiate Academy of Frederick built an impressive estate, Saint Joseph’s Villa, on the hill in 1895. This was located there because of Restoration Spring just to the north at the base of the hill. The Academy moved to New York in 1903 and the Villa was subsequently demolished. Dr Rudolph Rau, a Frederick surgeon, bought the land in 1911 and constructed an imposing white mansion with colossal columns, a third-floor ballroom and carriage house. This estate, "Wide Pastures", also included an extensive Italianate woodland and terraced garden. This property was sold in 1929 to Robert Bright who used it as a summerhouse until 1943. Three years later, the U.S. government bought it and it was used as the Ft Detrick post commander’s residence until it too was demolished in 1977. Today, only retaining walls and some flagstone paths remain, but photos of both the Novitiate Academy building and Dr Rau’s mansion can be seen as part of interpretive signage at the site.
Building 470, a pilot plant known as "Anthrax Tower" (1953; demolished in 2003)