But this beautiful rural vision is transformed should you look north towards Salisbury Plane. Dozens of windowless sheds pepper the skyline. Razorwire fences criss-cross the chalky hillsides while guard dogs patrol the perimeter. And every now and again, you can hear the muffled sound of powerful explosions in the distance. This vast and sprawling complex is Porton Down, Britain’s biological and chemical defence research laboratory.

Porton Down, home of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, recently hit the headlines when it was revealed that its scientists had been blowing up live pigs. During these experiments, 18 animals were wrapped in ‘protective blankets’ before explosives were detonated a few yards away. Before  they were blown up, the pigs had wires and tubes inserted into their blood vessels so that they were torn open by the blast. The aim, says Porton Down, was to see how much blood an injured soldier could lose before dying.

Although these experiments are themselves unsettling, a Daily Mail investigation has discovered that they were only a small part of a major research effort that also investigated the effects of biological and chemical weapons on pigs, monkeys, rodents and many other species.

Over the past decade, Porton Down has carried out experiments on 150,000 animals including 582 monkeys, 961 pigs, and 136,000 mice. These figures are all the more shocking given that the Government promised in 1997 to end the use of all animals in military experiments. Instead, the number of animals killed each year in such tests has more than doubled.

Over the past five years alone, 119 pigs have been blown up to test the effects of high explosives on living tissue (thankfully most were sedated first). Monkeys have also been infected with anthrax and then left to die without anaesthetic or painkillers. Guinea pigs have been injected with nerve gases and monitored as they died. And in related experiments, pigs were doused with Mustard gas and Phosgene; both ‘blistering agents’ which burn the skin and damage the lungs so badly that victims drown in their own blood.

In other projects carried out at Porton Down and its associated labs, goats have been crushed by water under intense pressure to simulate submarine accidents. Pigs and monkeys have been shot in the head to gauge the effect of bullets and ‘missiles’ on brain tissue. And ‘riot control’ gases have been tested on monkeys.

These tests – and countless similar ones – have alarmed animal welfare campaigners.

“These animals are being subjected to the most appalling and grotesque experiments and to unimaginable pain and suffering,” says Sarah Kite of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection. “In some cases they are simply left to die with no pain relief while their suffering and death is observed and recorded.

“We believe that these experiments represent the tip of the iceberg. So much research is classified as secret, or is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, that we will never know what really happens at Porton Down.”

When contacted by the Daily Mail, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory refused to answer any questions within the next month.

A spokeswoman said: “DSTL will answer your questions, but request that these are resubmitted as a Freedom of Information Act Request.”

DSTL’s work is generally exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

The only person who would talk publicly about the Porton Down experiments was Quentin Davies, the Junior Defence Minister – and he was obliged to do so under Parliamentary rules. In a written response to Parliamentary Questions tabled on behalf of the Daily Mail, Mr Davies said that the explosive tests on pigs had “saved many lives” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The advances made due to this research can be utilised both ‘in theatre’ and in civilian scenarios. This is particularly true if there are mass casualties and evacuation to hospital is delayed.”

The vast and sprawling Porton Down complex has it’s roots in the First World War when it was established to develop chemical weapons. It’s scientists later ‘weaponised’ anthrax and other undisclosed diseases. Both types of terrifying weapons are now mercifully banned under international law, but there is always the risk that terrorists or rogue states may develop and use them. As a result, Porton Down’s scientists have been intensely studying such weapons and trying to develop counter-measures.

Many will accept that Porton Down plays an important role in the nation’s defence. Nevertheless, some of the animal experiments carried out at the base – and at other military research laboratories – can make disturbing reading.

 
In 2001, Porton Down scientists reported in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research how they broke the legs of sheep and infected their wounds with virulent bacteria. In one experiment, scientists implanted dirty pins inside the broken bones of 12 sheep so they could study the growth and spread of infection through the body. Six of the animals were given antibiotics, the remainder were left untreated. The untreated sheep rapidly developed run-away septic arthritis as their bones began to rot. All of the animals were put to sleep within a fortnight because their legs’ had become so gangrenous. Even some of the creatures given powerful antibiotics had to be put down because their suffering had become intolerable.

Over the past decade, Porton Down scientists have also infected monkeys with anthrax, TB, and the vicious pathogen F. tularensis, before carefully studying their grisly deaths.

In 2008, DSTL’s scientists reported in the International Journal of Experimental Pathology the effects of ‘weaponised’ anthrax on marmoset monkeys.  The poor creatures quickly became short of breath, their fur became clammy and began standing on end. They soon became disorientated and paralysis set in.

I asked Porton Down why they had carried out this experiment given that there are effective vaccines and treatments against anthrax and that the effects of the disease are well known. DSTL declined to comment.

Scientists at the base have also tested the nerve gases Sarin and Soman on monkeys. After high doses of Soman, the monkeys collapsed with convulsions and began crawling around their cages in a pitiful effort to escape. The monkeys eventually suffocated and died.

Pigs are favoured experimental subjects at Porton Down. The Lab even has it’s own special variety of pig, with soft white skin that’s said to resemble that of a human. For this reason, they’re routinely used to test the corrosive effects of chemical weapons.

In one experiment, reported in the journal Trauma,  30 pigs were exposed to Phosgene gas. The First World War poet Wilfred Owen memorably described seeing blood “gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs” of his fellow soldiers caught off-guard by a Phosgene gas attack. Within a few minutes of exposure to the gas, lungs begin filling with fluid and eyeballs begin to blister and dissolve. Victims of Phosgene poisoning generally drown in their own bodily fluids within a few days. The pigs gassed at Porton Down were mercifully sedated first.

It’s experiments like this that have shocked animal welfare campaigners the most, largely because such weapons were so intensely studied in the past by doctors trying to save the lives of soldiers gassed on the battlefield.

Andrew Tyler, director of Animal Aid, says: “What is the point of such experiments? They don’t provide any new information. They’re simply being done to maintain Porton Down’s scientific bureaucracy and infrastructure.”

Until recently, all animal experiments carried out at Porton Down had to be assessed by an ethics committee. This would weigh up the cost to animal welfare, in terms of pain and suffering, in comparison to the likely benefits to people. This committee seems to have been quietly retired.

This does not surprise those who were involved in one of Porton Down’s more infamous scientific programmes: the testing of chemical and biological weapons on unwitting human ‘guinea pigs’. 

“Ethics doesn’t seem to be a word many at Porton Down understand,” says Ken Earl, founder of the Porton Down Veterans’ Support Group. “It doesn’t surprise me that they are blowing up pigs and gassing monkeys. That’s not very different to what they were doing to people until recently.”

Mr Earl points out that at least 30,000 servicemen from 1939 onwards were involved in a series of experiments that tested biological and chemical weapons and their antidotes on human “volunteers”. Hundreds suffered lasting health problems that continue to this day. And at least one serviceman was killed and many more were critically injured.

The death of Ronald Maddison on 6th May 1953 still hangs like a pall over Porton Down. Leading Aircraftsman Maddison, who was just 20, was asked to volunteer for a programme that was seeking a cure for the common cold. But Maddison, along with scores of others, had been secretly enrolled in a programme to test nerve gasses.

He was locked in a sealed glass room and his arm dabbed with liquid Sarin. Within a minute, Maddison was on the floor foaming at the mouth, his body wracked with violent convulsions. One witness described seeing fluid “like frogspawn” flooding out of his mouth and nose. He was dead within the hour.

Commanders at the base covered up the details of LAC Maddison’s death and they remained under wraps until the police launched a formal enquiry in 1999. In 2004 an inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing but no charges have ever been laid.

Ken Earl, who was involved in the same Sarin gas trial as LAC Maddison, says that the human experiments were done largely out of curiosity.

“They tested Sarin gas on thousands of rabbits and then they wanted to see how it worked in people. They poisoned me, Ronald Maddison, and many others to study the horrific effects of nerve gases.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that they’re now killing thousands of animals too. Animal welfare won’t come into it. If they can get away with killing people in their experiments then God know’s what they’ll be doing to animals behind closed doors. After my experiences at Porton Down, I know for a fact that those creatures will be suffering cruel and unnecessary deaths.”

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