The Bay When the Military Tested a Biological Weapon in S.F.
Nov 12, 2025
Katherine Monahan, a KQED reporter, dives into the chilling history of the 1950 biological weapons test conducted by the U.S. military in San Francisco. She reveals how bacteria meant for harmless testing resulted in illness and one death. Katherine discusses Cold War fears, the selection of Bacillus globigii, and how monitoring showed the bacterial spray reached across the Bay. The podcast also explores the legal battle faced by Edward Nevin III, who sought accountability for his grandfather’s untimely death linked to this experiment.
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Coastal Cities Could Be Hit From Offshore
- In 1950 the U.S. military sprayed supposedly harmless bacteria over San Francisco to test coastal-city vulnerability.
- The operation proved a boat could disperse an agent that reached 23 miles and exposed hundreds of thousands of residents.
‘Harmless’ Tracers Were Chosen For Detectability
- The military used benign-seeming microbes like Serratia marcescens and Bacillus globigii as tracers to simulate dispersal.
- They picked organisms easy to detect, not necessarily safe in large airborne doses or to vulnerable people.
Nevin's Death Linked To The Spray
- The spray drifted over Stanford Hospital and coincided with a spike in serratia infections among patients.
- Eleven patients fell ill and one, Edward Nevin, later died after the bacterium reached his heart.