cleanup was completed in 2021. post-war accidental exposure in 2002, an archaeologist at the presidio trust archaeology lab in san francisco was exposed to mustard gas, which had been dug up at the presidio of san francisco, a former military base. in 2010, a clamming boat pulled up some old artillery shells of world war i from the atlantic ocean south of long island, new york. multiple fishermen suffered from blistering and respiratory irritation severe enough to require hospitalization. wwii-era tests on men mustard gas test subjects enter gas chamber, edgewood arsenal, march 1945 from 1943 to 1944, mustard agent experiments were performed on australian service volunteers in tropical queensland, australia, by british army and american experimenters, resulting in some severe injuries. one test site, the brook islands national park, was chosen to simulate pacific islands held by the imperial japanese army. the united states tested sulfur mustards and other chemical agents including nitrogen mustards and lewisite on up to 60,000 servicemen during and after wwii. the experiments were classified secret and as with agent orange, claims for medical care and compensation were routinely denied, even after the wwii-era tests were declassified in 1993. the department of veterans affairs stated that it would contact 4,000 surviving test subjects but failed to do so, eventually only contacting 600. skin cancer, severe eczema, leukemia, and chronic breathing problems plagued the test subjects, some of whom were as young as 19 at the time of the tests, until their deaths, but even those who had previously filed claims with the va went without compensation. arms of four test subjects after exposure to nitrogen mustard and lewisite agents. african-american servicemen were tested alongside white men in separate trials to determine whether their skin color would afford them a degree of immunity to the agents, and nisei servicemen, some of whom had joined after their release from japanese american internment camps were tested to determine susceptibility of japanese military personnel to these agents. these tests also included puerto-rican subjects. detection in biological fluids concentrations of thiodiglycol in urine have been used to confirm a diagnosis of chemical poisoning in hospitalized victims. the presence in urine of 1,1'-sulfonylbismethylthioethane (sbmte), a conjugation product with glutathione, is considered a more specific marker, since this metabolite is not found in specimens from unexposed persons. in one case, intact mustard gas was detected in postmortem fluids and tissues of a man who died one week post-exposure.