Did the government weaponize Lyme disease?

Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) in Utah’s west desert is the U.S. Army’s largest testing and training range in United States. A common location for biological and chemical weapons testing, official reports state that between 1951 and 1969, the Department of Defense (DOD) and other national security agencies performed hundreds of open-air weapons tests and experiments using bacteria and viruses that cause disease in humans, animals and plants at DPG. Some reports conclude that this testing went on for much longer and was much more extensive. Activities at DPG during this time included aerial nerve agent testing, including the VX nerve agent and anthrax toxin, as well as many others. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Project Bellwether—a study of weaponized, mosquito-spread infections—was based at DPG.

Locals born and raised in the nearby west desert town of Grantsville in the late ‘60s have a disproportionately high rate of infection from Lyme disease; an incredibly uncommon illness in Utah’s dry, high-desert climate. Many of these now-senior Grantsville natives have been suffering crippling pain, arthritis, lethargy, and other effects for decades, as doctors and health professionals over the years struggled to correctly diagnose their condition. Not until recently, when proper Lyme testing was provided to them, did these residents finally understand what disease had affected them for so long.

Was one of the DOD’s open-air chemical tests at Dugway in the late ‘60s indeed weaponized Lyme disease? Did one of these tests inadvertently spread airborne Lyme disease across nearby Grantsville? Is it odd that more and more people who grew up in this small west desert town in the late ‘60s are testing positive for African strains of Lyme disease that have never been seen anywhere in the United States before or since?

We want the U.S. government to come clean about their involvement with weaponized Lyme disease at Dugway. And if they’re at fault, we want justice, treatment, and compensation for the decades of pain and suffering the disease has caused Grantsville residents.