5 Bonus Episode: ‘Clouds over Gas Lane‘ with Mike Kenner

Poisons and Pestilence

Welcome to the first-ever bonus episode of the poisons and pestilence podcast!

This episode is the first in a two-part special on large area biological weapon simulant trials, carried out in the UK during the Cold War. In this episode, we focus on work carried out by scientists from Porton Down up until the mid -1960’s- which involved the spread of zinc cadmium sulphide over vast swathes of the UK. In part two of this special, we will take a deeper dive into the ‘Lyme Bay Trials’ which involved the use of bacteria, including E.coli in open-air trials over populated areas during the 1960s and 1970s. In the second show, we will also examine the political fall-out of experiments these experiments, when they started coming to broader public attention in the 1990s.

Further resources

Mike Kenner YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/experimentsrus

Rob Evans (2000) ‘Gassed’ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gassed-Behind-Scenes-Porton-Down/dp/1842320718

Brian Balmer ( 2001) Britain and Biological Warfare https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Britain_and_Biological_Warfare/GGWJDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=brian+balmer&printsec=frontcover

Brian Balmer (2016) Secrecy and Science https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Secrecy_and_Science/KrreCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Brian+balmer+2016&pg=PT3&printsec=frontcover

Peter Hammond and Gordon Carter ( 2000) From Biological Warfare to Healthcare https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/From_Biological_Warfare_to_Healthcare/UTwGDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=porton+down+history+carter&printsec=frontcover