AUSTIN, TX — Two watchdog groups are appealing the U.S. Army’s refusal to release a study that compared the effects of different chemical, and possibly biological, weapons on different ethnic, gender, and age groups. The Army has refused to release a single page of the study, conducted in 1999 by the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

The watchdogs are the Sunshine Project and Citizens Education Project, which tracked activities at the test site. They have filed an appeal with the U.S. Army General Counsel’s Office.

“We want to know how and why the U.S. Army is researching chemical weapons effects on different kinds of people,” said Sunshine Project Director Edward Hammond. “We see no valid defensive purpose to build data on ethnic chemical warfare. On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons why this research might make others nervous. Did the Army segregate people based on ethnicity, gender and age and then expose them to weapons agents?”

In its reply, the Army mentions biological agents in addition to the chemicals, an admission that increases their concern. “The Army’s reference to biological agents is all the more reason why it must disclose this report to explain what it has done and why it wants data on the effects of prohibited weapons on ethnic groups,” Hammond said.