The article continued: "If the Inspector General finds that such experiments occurred, then, according to the bill, they must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the scope of the research and 'whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experimental design'...potentially leading to the spread of diseases such as Lyme."
The measure was introduced by Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, "who was 'inspired' by several books and articles claiming that the U.S. government had conducted research at facilities such as Fort Detrick, Maryland, and Plum Island, New York, for this purpose."
One of the books, published earlier this year, was Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Stanford University science writer Kris Newby. It includes interviews with Willy Burgdorfer who is credited with having discovered the pathogen that causes Lyme disease and earlier developed bioweapons for the Department of Defense. Said Smith on the House floor:
"Those interviews combined with access to Dr. Burdorfer's lab files suggest that he and other bioweapons specialists stuffed ticks with pathogens to cause severe disability, disease — even death — to potential enemies. With Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases exploding in the United States...Americans have a right to know whether any of this is true."
Comment: See also:
The quote does not appear in every copy from the 1980s'. In the updated version, America's Nazi Secret, one finds:
"An updated, declassified and uncensored version of the original work, The Belarus Secret Original Manuscript censored by the US Government in 1981, 1982, and again in 1983."
"Files declassified 2009-2010, Central Intelligence Agency"
For a discussion of the information and the censoring, see this page: "from Leslie Feinberg August 2011 transgenderwarrior.org my research notes on the medical politics driving the "Lyme Wars" - "Part 35: Ex-U.S. prosecutor publicly charged Nazi scientist tested 'poison ticks' on Plum Island."
Feinberg begins:
"Former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus makes a very serious charge in the preface of his 1982 book, "The Belarus Secret: : The Nazi Connection in America," Loftus stated that scientists conducted open-air testing of ticks weaponized with diseases at the Plum Island artillery range in the early 1950s. (Hardcover, Paragon House: 1982; reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)"
"In the Preface to the "The Belarus Secret" Loftus wrote: "Even more disturbing are the records of the Nazi germ warfare scientists who came to [North] America. "They experimented with poison ticks dropped from planes to spread rare diseases." Loftus continued, "I have received some information suggesting that the U.S. tested some of these poison ticks on the Plum Island artillery range off the coast of Connecticut during the early 1950s. ... "Most of the germ warfare records have been shredded, but there is a top secret U.S. document confirming that 'clandestine attacks on crops and animals' took place at this time." (Preface, p. xviii) Unlike former corporate attorney Michael Christopher Carroll, John Loftus' charge is an "insider" accusation."
The central point also appears on page 13 of the hard cover edition of Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory by Michael Christopher Carrol from 2004. Carrol had, according to the acknowledgements, help from John Loftus.