They weren't real big on morality - apart from employing the Nazis, they also offered full-pardons to Japan's notorious Unit 731 war-criminal scientists - who conducted bioweapons projects in Manchuria as well as bio-weapons testing on POW's - if they passed on their research. I'm guessing everyone jumped at that offer.

There are accusations that the US used this acquired tech to launch bioweapons attacks during the Korean War. US denies involvement, says the outbreaks were due to natural causes.

There's a direct lineage between this original culture at Fort Detrick and what happened with Covid.

1. Morality-free zone formed under a cloak of secrecy to develop bioweapons

2. Spent decades developing bioweapons and exaggerating the threat of bioweapons attacks, thereby creating a powerful gov/military/academia alliance. This includes the Antrhax mailings, which were done by a Fort Detrick Scientist to increase funding and promote anthrax vaccines. Goals that were achieved in spades.

3. When the public stopped believing the whole bio-terrorist under every rock scenario (sometime after Iraq War 2 when no weapons were found), the bio-weapons empire seamlessly switched to exaggerating the threat of natural viruses.

4. This lead to enormous money for research into bat viruses, which led to GoF, which led to Covid, which led to more power and money for the people who created it in the first place.