The House has called for an inquiry into whether the U.S. experimented with weaponized ticks during the Cold War.
Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey added the amendment, which passed by a voice vote, to the House-passed 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The one-page amendment calls on the Defense Department inspector general to investigate “whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975.”
It goes on to say that if the inspector general finds that experiments occurred, they will submit a report to the House Armed Services Committee about the “scope of the experiment” and “whether any ticks or insects used in such experiment were released outside of any laboratory by accident or by experimental design.”
Smith said he was inspired to write the amendment because of books and research suggesting the U.S. put a significant effort into seeing if it could turn ticks and insects into bioweapons.
“With Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases exploding in the United States — with an estimated 300,000 to 437,000 new cases diagnosed each year and 10-20 percent of all patients suffering from chronic Lyme disease — Americans have a right to know whether any of this is true,” Smith said in a statement.
