Secret fort in US must come clean on its work

More than 100 residents near the base developed cancer

Just when everyone thought that this dark history was a thing of the past, in 2011, an ABC report sparked renewed attention.

More than 100 residents suffered from fatal cancer near the fort, according to US media reports.

A term not often used in everyday life — deadly cancer cluster, appeared in the ABC report.

Such an important base is suddenly closed

Eight years later, the base was in the news again.

In July 2019, Fort Detrick was suddenly closed, but the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) refused to release critical information for "national security reasons".

According to the The New York Times, the government suspended military research at the frontier biological defense center due to the handling of hazardous materials. It is reported that the suspended study involved a total of 67 "selective agents" and toxins, such as microorganisms that cause Ebola, smallpox, anthrax and plague, as well as organisms that cause ricin.

According to RT TV, the CDC highlighted problems in the wastewater system.

Bio-base and "vaping illness"

Shortly after the Fort Detrick base was closed in July 2019, an inexplicable "vaping illness" broke out in the surrounding area in August 2019. Vaping illness is a lung ailment more commonly associated with the e-cigarette or vaping products.

Maryland Secretary of Health Robert R. Neall issued a new mandate on Oct 3 for doctors after 23 lung-related illnesses were linked to vaping in the state. The number should only include voluntarily-made reports.

The symptoms and prevalence of e-cigarette patients have sparked a heated debate in the US. A doctor even went so far as to say that something was very wrong.

Patients, mostly otherwise healthy and in their late teens and 20s, are showing up with severe shortness of breath, often after suffering for several days with vomiting, fever and fatigue. Some have wound up in the intensive care unit or on a ventilator for weeks.

On Oct 2, 2019, the New York Times detailed cases of vaping illness in a separate story.

Doctors at the Mayo Clinic examined samples of lung tissue from 17 patients, all of which looked as if the people had been exposed to toxic chemicals, the researchers said.