SALT LAKE CITY -- A new report says the Defense Department has done a poor job of notifying people on whom they secretly tested chemical and biological agents in the 1960s and '70s.

Many of those tests were conducted under the code name Project 112, which had its headquarters at Salt Lake City's Fort Douglas. A 2004 study indicated there were at least eight tests at Dugway Proving Ground or involved personnel from Dugway. The Government Accountability Office said the tests were conducted on both military personnel and civilians between 1962 and 1974.

Douglas Rosinski led a group of veterans who helped break the silence about the testing.

"For 40 years, they said this never happened," he said. "I would be surprised if the government was still being anything other than absolutely reluctant."

The new report said the military has been slow to disclose the testing to subjects, even as outside groups claim the chemical and biological agents could have contributed to long-term illnesses among hundreds of people. It also criticized a decision to stop looking for those who were affected in 2003, a decision it said was "not supported by an objective analysis."

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., sparked an inquiry into the experiments four years ago. He said he found that VX nerve gas, sarin nerve gas and E. coli had been tested on unknowing military personnel on Navy ships.

His search yielded no conclusive relationship between the tests and adverse health affects, however -- largely because there were no data available from people who had died in the intermittent 40 years, Thompson said.

"These veterans deserve to know the truth about what these chemicals have done to their health," he said in a statement. He is calling for a new round of studies.