Porton Down

Site of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment (until 1991 Chemical Defence Establishment) in Wiltshire, southwestern England. Its prime role is to conduct research into means of protection from chemical attack.

During the Cold War era, chemical weapons experiments were conducted on 20,000 military volunteers. In 2000 there were calls for an investigation into the ethics of these experiments and an inquiry into whether or not the soldiers involved had given their informed consent.