biology

Project SHAD

Project SHAD is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Project SHAD rather than just read about it. In short: Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify U.S. warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical agents or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.

Key takeaways

Project SHAD belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Project SHAD to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Project SHAD from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Project SHAD, an acronym for Shipboard Hazard and Defense, was part of a larger effort called Project 112, which was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD encompassed tests designed to identify U.S. warships' vulnerabilities to attacks with chemical agents or biological warfare agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks while maintaining a war-fighting capability.

History

Project SHAD was part of a larger effort by the Department of Defense called Project 112. Project 112 was a chemical and biological weapons research, development, and testing project conducted by the United States Department of Defense and CIA handled by the Deseret Test Center and United States Army Chemical Materials Agency from 1962 to 1973. The project started under John F. Kennedy's administration, and was authorized by his Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, as part of a total review of the US military. The name of the project refers to its number in the 150 review process.

Mission The Shipboard Hazard and Defense Project (SHAD) was a series of tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense during the 1960s to determine how well service members aboard military ships could detect and respond to chemical and biological attacks. Dee Dodson Morris of the Army Chemical Corps who coordinated the ongoing investigation, says, "The SHAD tests were intended to show how vulnerable Navy ships were to chemical or biological warfare agents. The objective was to learn how chemical or biological warfare agents would disperse throughout a ship, and to use that information to develop procedures to protect crew members and decontaminate ships." DoD investigators note that over a hundred tests were planned but the lack of test results may indicate that many tests were never actually executed. 134 tests were planned initially, but reportedly, only 46 tests were actually completed.

Declassification Public Law 107–314 required the identification and release of not only Project 112 information to the United States Veterans Administration, but also that of any other projects or tests where a veteran might have been exposed to a chemical or biological warfare agent, and directed the Secretary of Defense to work with veterans and veterans service organizations to identify the other projects or tests conducted by the Department of Defense that may have exposed members of the Armed Forces to chemical or biological agents. In 2000, the Department of Defense began the process of declassifying records about the project. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, approximately 6,000 U.S. Service members were believed to be involved in conducting the tests. In 2002, the Department of Defense began publishing a list of fact sheets for each of the tests.

Identification Although many of the roughly 5,500 veterans who took part were aware of the tests, some were involved without their knowledge. Certain issues surrounding the test program were not resolved by the passage of the law and the Department of Defense was accused of continuing to withhold documents on Cold War chemical and biological weapons tests that used unsuspecting veterans as "human samplers" after reporting to Congress it had released all medically relevant information. A Government Accountability Office May 2004 report, Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD Needs to Continue to Collect and Provide Information on Tests and Potentially Exposed Personnel indicates that almost all participants who were identified from Project 112 — 94 percent — were from ship-based tests of Project SHAD that comprised only about one-third of the total number of tests conducted.

Medical studies Jack Alderson, a retired Navy officer who commanded the Army tugboats, told CBS News that he believes the Pentagon used him and other service members to test weapons, and that those tests included agents, vaccines, and decontamination products which have led to serious medical problems, including cancer. Secrecy agreements can now be ignored by veterans in order to pursue healthcare concerns within the Department of Veterans Affairs. The V.A. has offered screening programs for veterans who believe they were involved in DoD sponsored tests during their service. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has commissioned studies of Project SHAD participants. The first, Long-Term Health Effects of Participation in Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense), was released in 2007, and found "no clear evidence that specific long-term health effects are associated with participation in Project SHAD." The second, Shipboard Hazard and Defense II (SHAD II), by the IoM's Medical Follow-up Agency (MFUA), began in 2012, and, as of April 2014, was ongoing.

Locations of SHAD tests from SHAD Fact Sheets

Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean off San Diego, CA Pacific Ocean, from San Diego, CA to Balboa, Panama Ft. Sherman, Panama Canal Zone Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands Baker Island Island of Hawaii Pacific Ocean near the Island of Oahu, Hawaii Pacific Ocean, west of Oahu, Hawaii Pacific Ocean southwest of Oahu, HI Oahu, HI and surrounding waters Pacific Ocean, off Oahu, HI & surrounding water & airspace Pacific Ocean near Johnston Island Eglin Air Force Base, Florida Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland, Canada

Ships and air units involved

Ships USS Berkeley (DDG-15) USS Carbonero (SS-337) USS Carpenter (DD-825) USS Fechteler (DD-870) USS Fort Snelling (LSD-30) USS George Eastman (YAG-39) USS Granville S. Hall (YAG-40) USS Herbert J. Thomas (DD-833) USS Hoel (DDG-13) USS Moctobi (ATF-105) USS Navarro (APA-215) USS Okanogan (APA-220) USS Power (DD-839) USNS Samuel Phillips Lee (T-AGS 31) USNS Silas Bent (T-AGS-26) USS Tioga County (LST-1158) USS Tiru (SS-416) USS Wexford County (LST-1168) US Navy Lighter Barge (YFN-811) US Army Large Tug LT-2080 US Army Large Tug LT-2081 US Army Large Tug LT-2085 US Army Large Tug LT-2086 US Army Large Tug LT-2087 US Army Large Tug LT-2088

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Project SHAD

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Project SHAD claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Project SHAD before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Project SHAD ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Project SHAD

In research: Project SHAD appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Project SHAD in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Project SHAD is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bioethics, Biological warfare, Human subject research in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Project SHAD outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Project SHAD in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Project SHAD means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Project SHAD out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Project SHAD in simple terms?

Why does Project SHAD matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Project SHAD?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Project SHAD.