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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

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TeMPOraL·

> Wow I had no idea that chemical weapons were tested in the suburbs of DC, wild.

Wait until you learn that biological weapons studies were done on people of San Francisco, without them knowing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray

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What is worse is the time bomb of chemical and even conventional weapons dumped into the oceans of the world. this of course only includes those we know about

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/decaying-weapo...

I was talking just about that the other day with my wife, and remarked that oceans are large - they can probably eat that exposure without much consequence. But the Allies also dumped those weapons into Baltic Sea, where it now poses a danger to the ecosystem (and consequently, the economy of my country and our neighbours).

On the German Islands in the North Sea there are still employees of the "Kampfmittelräumdienst" - bomb disposal squads walking up and down the coast line looking for stuff that gets washed ashore. Especially problematic are incendiary bombs where the content reacts with air like white phosphorus. People pick them up thinking it to be amber pieces and put them into their pockets and end up with horrible burns in the hospital.

That's a little different. They thought the bacteria was harmless and were trying to study distribution, not effects. In hindsight we know it caused negative effects so we consider it stupid.

In comparison, testing actual chemical weapons that are supposed to be harmful in proximity to and upwind of a city is stupid in foresight and hindsight.

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