By Lee Davidson, Washington Correspondent

Secret Army tests, designed by scientists in Utah that spread toxic chemicals throughout the East in the 1950s and 1960s, likely did not sicken Eastern residents.

That's the conclusion of a special committee of the National Research Council, which Congress asked to review the tests. The tests were originally designed to determine whether germ weapons could be spread across vast areas by the winds.

The tests were first uncovered by a Deseret News investigation in 1991. Congressional probes followed when residents of affected areas worried the chemicals may have increased their risk of cancer, kidney damage and birth defects.

"After an exhaustive, independent review requested by Congress, we have found no evidence that exposure to zinc cadmium sulfide at these levels could cause people to become sick," said committee chairwoman Rogene Henderson, a senior scientist at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico.

"Even when we assume the worst about how this chemical might behave in the lungs, we conclude that people would be at a higher risk simply from living in a typical urban, industrialized area for several days or, in some cases, for months," she said.

However, the committee also said it found "people were outraged by being exposed to chemicals by the government without their knowledge or consent." It said the Army must find methods "for addressing the public's sense of outrage."

In 1957 and 1958, scientists at Utah's Dugway Proving Ground spread from airplanes a mixture of zinc and toxic cadmium sulfide in four huge tests covering virtually all areas east of the Rockies in what it called Operation Large Area Coverage.

It used those chemicals because they were easy to trace as they spread. They are fluorescent and can easily be seen in ultraviolet light. However, scientific literature had warned since the 1930s that cadmium compounds could cause disease and death.

Operation LAC spread the chemicals to prove germ weapons could spread over large areas via wind. Dugway scientists wrote that might allow, for example, destroying an enemy's wheat crop by dropping disease spores from airplanes flying far away in the Arctic.

But Operation LAC had some problems. For example, the winds shifted during one test designed to spread cadmium sulfide from Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. It was blown from South Dakota east to the Atlantic and unintentionally across Canada. It was called a "partial success" anyway.

After Operation LAC, Dugway conducted more tests throughout the 1960s on a smaller scale, mostly in the East but also in Nevada and Washington. A total of 33 tests spread the toxic chemical from airplanes, rooftops and moving vehicles.

While the Army originally refused to release to the Deseret News the exact dose measurements it had for various cities, the National Research Council did obtain and evaluate that information.

Based on that information, the committee estimated the maximum extra lifetime cancer risk for the most heavily exposed resident of St. Louis to be 1.5 cases in 1 million people; in Minneapolis, one in 2.5 million; one in 1 million in Winnipeg, Canada; seven in 100 million in Fort Wayne, Ind.; and one in 100 million in Corpus Christi, Texas.

It noted high doses of cadmium over long periods can cause lung cancer and kidney problems. However, it said, the Army tests involved small doses of a less toxic compound over short periods of time.

Earlier documents suggested soldiers at Dugway may have been exposed to higher amounts. Photos showed young men not wearing shirts (because of the desert heat) mixing and moving the toxic chemicals. That issue was not addressed in the new report.

While the report says few, if any, people were likely sickened by the tests, some have said they believe they were.

For example, Ray Phillips, who lived in Knox, Ind., in 1958 when an Army plane spread cadmium sulfide overhead, contacted the Deseret News shortly after its initial probe.

He reported he had been diagnosed for years with symptoms of cadmium poisoning, which he originally blamed on his work repairing photocopiers (which use cadmium). Then a sister who had moved to New Mexico and had never worked with copiers developed the same sort of lung disease.

Later, another sister who had moved to Michigan also developed it. Because of her illness, he said at the time, "I wonder if it had something to do with my illness."