U.S. Army gassed the turnpike in ’50s

For two decades, from 1949 to 1969, the federal government conducted biological warfare experiments without warning in locations stretching from the New York City subway to San Francisco Bay. Instead of a deadly germ, the Army used dust or bacteria that were thought at the time to be harmless.

But some of the substances ultimately turned out to be not so harmless after all – with one death and 10 additional cases of pneumonia or related infections often blamed on a fog spewed over San Francisco in 1950. Philadelphia Daily News