In a 1977 special report to Congress, the U.S. Army admitted conducting hundreds of chemical and biological warfare tests, including at least 25 that deliberately targeted the unsuspecting public. The military disclosed evidence that it had released disease-causing germs in at least 48 open-air tests. (U.S. Army Activity in the U.S. Biological Warfare Programs, 1942-1977. Vols 1 and 2, February 24, 1977) 

In 1994, Senator John D.Rockefeller's report (Examining Biological Experimentation on U.S. Military) further revealed that over the previous 50 years, the U.S. military intentionally exposed hundreds of thousands of their own soldiers to dangerous microbes, mustard and nerve gas, radiation, hallucinogens and psychochemicals. 

Recent bioterror attacks have prolonged the national crisis sparked on September 11. Widespread concerns about anthrax have served those who wish to promote the draconian laws that are descending upon the U.S. Curiously, the strain of anthrax bacteria being used most likely originates from the U.S. military (Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist, October 24) 
The following quotations, compiled from various sources, summarize the shameful but little-known history of the U.S. military's responsibility for exposing Americans to the terror of biological weapons.

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1943 Fort Detrick: 
The U.S. began research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.1 They studied anthrax, brucellosis, Botulinus toxin, plague, Sclerotium rolfoil, late blight, late blast, brownspot of rice, rinderpest, tularemia, mussel poisoning, coccidioidomycosis, rickettsia, psittacosis, neurotropic encephalitis, Newcastle disease and fowl plague.2

1945 Recruiting Nazis: 
The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence and the CIA initiated Project Paperclip to recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret, U.S. government projects [including bio-warfare experiments on unwilling human subjects].1

1946 Japanese war criminals: 
The U.S. began negotiations with Japan to acquire their germ warfare data. In exchange, Japanese scientists received immunity from prosecution for their war crimes. Dr. Shiro Ishii, a physician and army officer who began experiments in germ warfare in 1932 when Japan invaded Manchuria, formed a biological-warfare unit (Unit 731) that used Chinese soldiers and civilians as test subjects. About 9,000 died of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases. U.S. soldiers captured in the Philippines were sent to Unit 731 so the Japanese could test biological weapons on them.2

1948 Cttee. on Biological Warfare:
The Secretary of Defense's Research and Development Board, requested an evaluation of biological agents as weapons of sabotage. The Committee on Biological Warfare recommended that methods be assessed for disseminating biological agents, with emphasis on special operations. It recommended research to test "innocuous organisms" in ventilation systems, subways and public water supplies. This influenced administrations for 20 years and the U.S. conducted highly-classified scientific tests on unknowing populations throughout the country.
The biological warfare research program in the early 1940s and 1950s involved antipersonnel, anticrop and antianimal studies. Field trials included open-air vulnerability testing, and contamination of public water systems with live organisms such as Serratia marcescens. Covert programs were conducted by the CIA. Pathogenic organisms were tested in Florida and the Bahamas in the 1940s. Chemical anticrop studies evaluated defoliation and crop destruction.3

1949 Germ bombs: 
Explosive munitions tests with pathogens were begun.3

1950 The First "open air tests": 
The first open-air tests with biological agents were conducted in various locales, including off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia.3

1950 Spraying San Francisco: 
The first large-scale, aerosol test was conducted in San Francisco Bay in September 1950, using two species of bacteria (Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescens). Many experiments used various Bacillus species because of their similarities to B. anthracis.3 
On September 26 and 27, 1950, the U.S. Army sprayed S. marcescens from a boat off the coast. On September 29, patients at San Francisco's Stanford University Hospital began appearing with S. marcescens infections.4 Many residents came down with pneumonia-like symptoms and one died. A military, follow-up study showed that nearly every single exposed person became infected with the test organism.5
The death of Edward J. Nevin was associated with this release of S. marcescens.4 (The first lawsuit against the U.S. government was filed by his family [in 1981]. The court decided that the U.S. government could not be sued, under the Federal Tort Claims Act, since the decision to spray S. marcescens was a part of national defense planning.)3

1951 Racist Germs: 
Army researchers deliberately exposed a disproportionate number of black citizens to the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, to see if African Americans were more susceptible to such infection, like they were already known to be to coccidioidomycosis (Coccidioides immitis). Similarly, in 1951, unsuspecting [black] workers at the Norfolk Supply Center, Norfolk, VA, were exposed to crates contaminated with A. fumigatus spores.3