SPILL THE BEANS

House Requiring Pentagon to Say Whether It Weaponized Ticks, Other Insects

An amendment directs the Pentagon IG to determine if the agency experimented with insects to use as a “biological weapon.”

The House of Representatives is requiring the Pentagon to disclose if it ever experimented with weaponizing ticks. According to Roll Call, an amendment added to the 2020 defense authorization bill passed last week orders the Pentagon’s inspector general to “conduct a review of whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975.” If the Defense Department did experiment with weaponizing insects, the amendment mandates the House and Senate Armed Services committees be briefed on the experiments and “whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design.”

A lawmaker behind the amendment, Rep. Christopher Smith, told the website the IG report could shed more light on Lyme disease—which is spread by ticks. It’s unclear if the amendment will make it to the final version of the bill presented to President Trump, as the Senate passed a different version and the two chambers must reconcile the differences.