Most recently making the news for their HPV vaccine Gardasil, there is much speculation regarding the intentions of Merck & Co. As the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing corporation, and one of the largest pharma companies in the world, their reach is larger than most are even aware.
As a corporation that has an impact on the lives of nearly every person in the Western World, it is reasonable to believe that we should be aware of any skeletons they may have in their closet. In doing some research into the history of the company, and their connection to biological warfare, their intentions are being called into question even more than ever!
Note: Merck & Co and the German “Merck KGaA” are not to be confused. Both companies originated from the original German Merck, however they are now their own separate corporations.
The History of Merck & Co, and George W. Merck
The German company Merck was founded in 1668. In 1887 George Merck set up a US division called Merck & Co. in New York.
The future of the American division was questionable in the early 1900’s due to the impact of the war. The US Government announced the seizure of all corporations affiliated with Germany as they entered World War I in April 1917, including Merck & Co. The company was put up for auction in 1919, so in an effort to save their company George Merck and his partners formed a ‘McKenna Corporation’ to bid and purchase the company, severing all connections at that time with the Merck in Germany.
George Merck passed his company on to his son, George W. Merck, in 1925. His son held the position of President of Merck & Co for 25 years, including throughout the years of World War II.
Throughout World War II George W. Merck, while still acting as President of Merck & Co., held an important leadership role in the US’ biological warfare program s the head of the War Research Service, the department in charge of Ft. Detrick.
“Origins of the U.S. Biological Warfare Program” by Barton J. Bernstein explained the selection of the leadership role, as well as how the program was tied into the major American universities:
“By midsummer, three candidates had rejected an offer to head the new group: economist Walter W. Stewart, who chaired the Rockefeller Foundation, geographer Isaiah Bowman, president of Johns Hopkins University, and economist Edmund Ezra Day, president of Cornell University. Finally, in August, chemist George W. Merck, president of the pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co., accepted the position.
The innocuously named War Research Service (WRS) started out in mid-1942 with an initial allocation of $200,000. Wide contacts with major biologists and physicians enabled the eight member directorate to initiate secret work in about 28 American universities, including Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wisconsin, Stanford University, and the University of California. “
Merck’s connection with the biological warfare program was not known publicly during this time. On August 18th, 1952, he was put on the cover of Time Magazine, with the quote “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been.”
Ft. Detrick
Ft. Detrick has a long history of controversy as one of the most well known biological warfare centers in US history.
It was at this location that Kurt Blome, a Nazi scientist, advised biological warfare experiments on how to go about experimenting on their own citizens. Blome had admitted that he had experimented both with bubonic plague and sarin gas on concentration camp prisoners in Auschwitz.
In the 1950’s and 60’s, under “Operation Sea Spray”, shortly after Merck left, a plan was drafted to spray bacteria over San Francisco.
It was also during this time, in 1953, that Frank Olson, an employee at Ft. Detrick, was assassinated for voicing his concerns regarding the morality of his work. The Center for Research on Globalization summed up his story:
“On 28 November 1953, at 2 am, a man crashed through a closed window and fell to his death from the 10th floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City. He was identified as Frank Olson, a bacteriologist with the US Army Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He had fallen from a room he shared with another scientist, Robert Lashbrook. It was ruled a suicide.
Twenty-two years later, in 1975, William Colby, then CIA director, declassified documents that changed the complexion of the case. It was revealed that Olson had actually been an undercover CIA operative at Fort Detrick, and that one week prior to his death, he had been drinking Cointreau at a high-level meeting with scientists at Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland. The Cointreau was laced with a large dose of LSD administered by his CIA boss, Sidney Gottlieb. He was then sent to New York with Lashbrook, also with the CIA, to see a psychiatrist because the LSD had induced a psychosis.
It was also revealed that Olson had been part of the top secret CIA program that was known as Project MK-ULTRA, exploring the use of chemicals and drugs for purposes of mind control, and bacteriological agents for covert assassination. Olson had been working on ways to deliver anthrax in aerosol form, for use as a weapon. New evidence that came to light, through the persistent efforts of Olson’s son Eric, made the suicide ruling highly suspect.”
There were a number of academic institutions, including Harvard and Stanford, that were largely involved with the biowarfare effort. These institutions were also advocating openly for eugenics for decades, stopping only when they got a bad reputation due to the Nazi’s.
How much influence did they have over the projects that were conducted at Ft. Detrick? One can only speculate based on similar academics and their approach to eugenics during this time.
An example of another academic involved in biowarfare, but also heavily interested in the area of eugenics, was Dr. Cornelius Rhoads. He was involved with the creation of “chemotherapy” out o mustard gas. Per What Really Happened:
“1931: The Puerto Rican Cancer Experiment was undertaken by Dr. Cornelius Rhoads. Under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, Rhoads purposely infected his subjects with cancer cells. Thirteen of the subjects died. When the experiment was uncovered, and in spite of Rhoads’ written opinions that the Puerto Rican population should be completely eradicated, Rhoads went on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama. He later was named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and was at the heart of the recently revealed radiation experiments on prisoners, hospital patients, and soldiers (these are covered in the ACHE report.http://www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/radiation/)”
How Does This Tie Back to Merck?
Further research would be required, however this is the beginning steps of understanding what may be the use of pharmaceuticals developed shortly after World War II against the American population as bioweapons, such as the Polio vaccine.
Just a few short years following the biowarfare activity, Eli Lilly/Merck’s Polio vaccine was contaminated with SV40, a cancer-causing virus. There was no solid proof of the cause, however they released a statement that it had accidentally been derived from the Rhesus monkey kidney cells that they had used when preparing the vaccine. Could this be another example of cancer being given purposely like it had with Dr. Cornelius Rhoads?
With the spotlight currently on Merck in relation to the Gardasil vaccine, it is pertinent that the general population remain educated on the history of the company, so as to keep our eyes open as we address the current events. Could Merck be continuing the agenda of poisoning and/or experimenting upon our own citizens today?
The research needs to continue until a solid answer is found!