militaries have generally focused on nerve and
blister agents as
The safety record at the Hermiston depot included some serious incidents - a 500-pound bomb accidentally exploded in March 1944, killing six people; 30 construction workers were overcome by an unknown substance in September 1999, but survived; a worker was exposed to a small amount of mustard
blister agent in 2010.
The biggest contract award is worth pounds 9.9m and involves the supply of 4,100 units that can quickly monitor for nerve and
blister agents.
The author covers poisons such as nerve poisons, blood poisons,
blister agents, and choking gases and biological agents such as anthrax, typhus, and cholera.
The ACADA uses ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) technology to concurrently detect and identify nerve and
blister agents under all environmental conditions, while mobile or stationary.
This system has already been used to detect and confirm the presence of nerve agents such as satin gas as well as for
blister agents such as mustard gas and nitrogen mustard.
After destruction of the satin rockets is complete, PBCDF will turn to destroying the stockpile of rockets and mines armed with the nerve agent VX and the stockpile of
blister agents, commonly known as mustard gas.
The facility, at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, will destroy approximately 3,850 tons of the nerve agents GB and VX and the
blister agents HT and HD.
The danger was recently reinforced by a little-noticed US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report that said insurgent networks across Iraq were increasingly seeking to acquire and deploy toxic nerve gases,
blister agents and germ weapons against coalition forces.
* CW agents detected include nerve and
blister agentsAt Quarnah, north of Basra, Danish mine-clearance troops found artillery shells thought to contain chemical
blister agents.
A small credit-card size device that can be installed on unmanned drones could be used to detect airborne nerve and
blister agents. The technology was developed at the Sandia National Laboratory, in New Mexico, and is being marketed by Lockheed Martin.
