Debunked: CIA's whooping cough experiment in 1955 kills 12 people

[Mick]

This particular piece of bunk even gets a mention in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethic..._United_States

Content from external source:

In 1955, the CIA conducted a biological warfare experiment where they released whooping cough bacteria from boats outside of Tampa Bay, Florida, causing a whooping cough epidemic in the city, and killing at least 12 people.^[43][44][45]

with references

Content from external source:

• ^ ^{a b c} Blum, William (2006). Rogue state: a guide to the world's only superpower. Zed Books. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-1-84277-827-2.
• ^ Michael Parenti, The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism, Revolution, and the Arms Race, St. Martins Press, 1989, pp.74-81, Excerpt available online at:[1] (accessed: 02/18/2010)
• ^ Biological Warfare and the National Security State: A Chronology, Tom Burghardt

Sounds impressively documented, but where do these references actually go? References [44] and [45] simply repeats the claim with no sources, reference [43] for Rouge State goes to this:

Where the reference (#15 of chapter 15) is:

Content from external source:

15. San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 1979, p.5

Which leads us to this UPI story:

So the entire story seems to be based on a a propaganda campaign by the Church of Scientology. They did not even claim to have any direct evidence that anything was spray, simply some accounts of an unknown quantity of bacteria, and a bunch of unrelated things like animal cages. They noticed this was a year when the whooping cough cases were higher than the last year, so they tried to paint a picture.

So there's no really evidence of what did, or did not happen. But it's nowhere near as clear cut as the Wikipedia references claim.