Japanese biological warfare research on humans: a case study of microbiology and ethics.

Japanese Biological Warfare Research on Humans: A Case Study of Microbiology and Ethics SHELDON HARRIS“ Emeritus Professor of History California State University, Northridge Northridge, California 91330

INTRODUCTION Throughout the twentieth century the world’s leading statesmen and scientists sought to outlaw the use of biologcal warfare (BW).The League of Nations was the first to attempt to proscribe the use of chemical and biological weapons in the 1925 Geneva Protocol, an action that was endorsed by most major nations of the world.’ However, in spite of having signed the Protocol, many of the principal industrial powers, includlng France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, the United Kmgdom and, beginning in 1942, the United States, persisted in subsidizing secret biological warfare research. During the 1930s, Japan embarked upon a program designed to make it the world’s pre-eminent biological warfare power. Radical militarists increasmgly dominated the nominal civilian governments during this period. They concluded that, because of its comparativelysmall population and limited natural resources, Japan could not achieve its expansionist objectives in East Asia unless it possessed weapons that could equalize the disparities with its rivals. The militarists looked to biologcal warfare as a source of parity and recruited Japan’s foremost scientists, physicians, dentists, veterinarians, and techcians to participate in the biologcal warfare program. Many of these highly educated men- and a few women-willingly joined the enterprise, and did their best to achieve the goals of the militarists, engagmg in both defensive and offensive b i o l o g d warfare research. What was unique about the Japanese approach, however, was that the scientists and physicians used human subjects in their investiga“Address for correspondence: 17 144 Nanette Street, Granada Hills, California 91344.

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tions. Men, women and children were subjected to monstrous experiments, and those who survived the ordeal were killed when they were no longer deemed useful. They were “sacrificed” either by being exposed to other tests or by poison injection or a bullet in the head. Pathologists would then use the opportunityto investigate the sacrificed victims in great detail. This paper traces in outline Japan’s biological warfare program,2 discussmg the motives of those who participated in the project and considering some of the rationalizationsoffered by participants to just@ their roles. Involuntary human experimentation is an obvious violation of the canon of scientific ethics; consequently I also explore the question of whether, in using involuntary human subjects in their experiments, Japanesescientists of the era were an aberration within the scientific community. While no d e h t i v e answer can be given, examination of the conduct of some German scientists dunng this period, as well as the reaction of the American and Soviet scientific communities to the post-World War I1 disclosure of Japanese human experiments, offers some indication of the feelings of many contemporary scientific investigators. Finally, I will consider the possibihty that, despite recent attempts to outlaw biological warfare, many countries still consider biological weapons a viable option and support extensive research in the field, apparently finding few, if any, obstacles to recruiting scientific personnel to support these programs. The question of scientific ethics and biological warfare remains a sgdicant issue more than sixty years after Japan launched its biological warfare scheme, and nearly fifty years after the conclusion of a world war that was fought in part to safeguard human nghts. ORIGINS OF JAPANESE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE RESEARCH

The guidmg personality behind both Japanese biological warfare and chemical warfare (CW) research was as unlikely a source as one could imagine: Koizumi Chikahiko was a mild-mannered, hard-worlung, politically powerful scientist who fancied himself a humanitarian. A pioneer in medical/military science, he rose to become the JapaneseArmy’s Surgeon General. Koizumi saw no contradiction between his humanitarian instincts and his commitment to militaristic expansion. Thus in the mid1920s he endorsed and supported studies in biological warfare and chemical warfare in the belief that such instruments would enable Japan to achieve its expansionist Koizumi first devoted considerable energy and resources to developing chemical warfare devices, but the research proved ineffective and he soon lost interest in chemical warfare. At the time he became disillusioned with chemical warfare, Koizumi met a young, hyperenergetic Army doctor, Major Ishii Shiro, who was promoting active

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research on biologcal warfare and who convinced him that biological warfare could enable Japan to achieve its objectives in Asia. The fourth son of a well-to-do farming f a d y , Ishi Shiro was brilliant, ambitious, flamboyant, charismatic, unstable, and indlfferent if not contemptuous of those who could not help advance his career. He also was cleverly sycophantic to his superiors in school, at university and, once he became an army doctor, among the military hierarchy. He studied in the Medical Department of Kyoto Imperial University and graduated with a medical degree in 1920. He immediately joined the Army as a probationary officer and became a Surgeon-First Lieutenant in 1921. Three years later, the Army sent h m back to Kyoto Imperial University for postgraduate studies, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in microbiology in either late 1926 or early 1927. Over the next few years, while serving in the Kyoto Army Medical Hospital, Ishii joined several ultra-nationalist societies that espoused anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, pro-national socialist views. He also published a series of scienthc papers, acquiring a reputation as an imaginative medical scholar. In the course of conducting scientific research Ishii read a report by a member of Japan’s delegation to the 1925 Geneva Conference for the Supervision of the International Traffic in Arms, which eventually produced the Geneva Protocol. Greatly impressed by the report, Ishii reasoned that if the world’s great powers sought to banish biologxal warfare, its potential as a weapon could be sigmficant. The young, radical, nationalistic doctor became an instant convert to the doctrine of biological warfare, and began lobbymg intensively with the War Ministry in Tokyo for funds to initiate biologcal warfare research. His initial efforts were rebuffed, but, after a two year tour (1928-1930) of scientific communities throughout the world, Ishii’s persistence was rewarded. In 1930, Ishii was promoted to Major in the Army and appointed a Professor of Immunology at the Tokyo Army Medical School, where it became his self-assigned task to pursue biological warfare research. Ishii continued to lobby for biologcal warfare research and came to the attention of Koizumi, who was a powerful figure in the medical-military establishment. Ishii became Koizumi’s protege, and Koizumi became a convert to biologml warfare. With Koimmi’s support, Ishi established a Department of Immunology at the Tokyo Army Medical School, which engaged in early research on biological warfare and remained Ishii’s Tokyo headquarters long after he transferred his principal research activities to the Asian mainland. Koizumi was not Ishii’s only important sponsor; he enjoyed the patronage of General Nagata Tetsuzan, a confidant of the Emperor, as well as the support of War Minister Araki Sadao. The radical nationalist Colonels Sumlu Yorimichi and Kajitsuka Ryuiji also were key Ishii partisans within the military hierar~hy,~ offering him entre to influential circles within the military establishment throughout the 1930s and during World

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War 11. Ishii’s friends and accomplishments enabled him to enjoy a meteoric rise in the Army: he was promoted routinely every three years and ultimately rose to the rank of Lieutenant General in 1945.4 Ishii’s early biological warfare research in Tokyo appeared promising, but he believed laboratory results with animals would never by themselves prove biological warfare’s He concluded early in his research that only tests on humans could satisfactorily determine the utility of biological weapons. Medical ethics did not enter this equation: Ishii’s training would not have included courses in ethic^,^ and Ishii’s personal habits and views were even lower than those of his medical-military contemporaries.6He was aware, however, that involuntary human testing was universally condemned, and remarked that, “There are two types of bacteriologicalwarfare research, A and B. A is offensive (Angdf)research, and B is defensive research. Vaccine research is of the B type,and this can be done in Japan. However, A type research can only be done abroad.”’ THE MANCHURIAN EXPERIMENTS

Ishii used his powerful connections to secure a posting to Japan’s newly acquired colony of Manchuria in 1932, where he initially was assigned to the medical center at Army headquarters. The leadership of the occupying Kwantung Army welcomed the new recruit: the heads of the Army and the medical corps quickly approved Ishii’s plans to conduct biological warfare research, providing him with the resources he would need to carry out his work. Ishii was now free to do “A type” research. In late 1932, Ishii set up a laboratory in Manchuria’s far northern industrial city of Harbin. He was given an initial budget of Y200,000, a considerable sum of money for the time, and command of more than 300 men to carry out his plans. Since much of its work was to be done in secret, h s unit was given a fictitious name, the Togo Unit. It soon became apparent that Harbin was not a desirable site for the type of research Ishii wished to pursue. His laboratory was fine for producing vaccines and other defensive biological warfare material, and he could get away with a few human tests in the seedy industrial sector where his research facility was located.* Ishii, however, wanted to test humans on a large scale, and Harbin could not provide the secrecy required for such a project. Beiyinhe Less than a year after arriving in Manchuria, Ishii found a more promising site for human testing. The village of Beiymhe was located approximately 100 km south of Harbin-far enough to avoid prying foreign eyes-

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and near a railroad that fed directly into the city. He secured permission from Kwantung Army leaders to commence work there and, with the aid of hundreds of gang-pressed Chinese coolies, hastily constructed a complex of more than 100 buildings. One of the new buildings housed prisoners, some of them ordinary criminals, others political prisoners, and still others partisans captured in skirmishes that continued after the Japanese conquest of Manchuria. The largest building w i h n the compound was a combination small holding prison for future experimental subjects, laboratories, crematorium, and ammunition dump. This building was so huge that local villagers called it the Zhong Ma Castle, and the entire camp was known as the Zhong Ma Camp.y Ishii's early experiments in Beiyinhe were crude and limited compared to those he devised later. Some early tests involved a Togo Unit technician's drawing an average 500 cubic centimeters of blood from each prisoner every few days. Most of the prisoners grew progressively weaker over time and were killed with an injection of poison when deemed no longer fit for further tests. Pathologists then dissected the bodies and disposed of the remains in the Zhong Ma crematorium.yIn another test three communist partisans were injected with bacteria produced from plagueinfected fleas. All three soon became delirious; over the next several weeks two of the partisans were recorded as having high fevers (39°C and 40°C). All three victims were dissected whde unconscious.1oIn general, prisoners were kept alive for no more than one month after their first test. Human testing ultimately involved plague, cholera, glanders, typhus, and many other pathogens that theoretically held potential for biological warfare. Ishii and his superiors in the Kwantung Army were pleased with the early test results, as were key members of the War Ministry in Tokyo. Unfortunately for them, this first major biologcal warfare test facility soon became a liability: prisoners rioted in the fall of 1935, and several escaped and found refuge with communist partisans. The following year, an ammunition dump within the camp exploded mysteriously. Secrecy could no longer be maintained, and the camp was ordered destroyed in 1935 or 1936." The number of prisoners killed during the two or more years the facility operated is unknown, but must have been at least in the hundreds.y,10 Lieutenant Colonel Ishii Shiro was appointed Chef of the Kwantung Army's Boeki Kyusui Bu, or Water Purification Units in 1936. Ishii was an expert on water purfication, having previously invented a filtration device that proved to be extremely useful to the Japanese Army. Under Ishii's direction, at least 18 Water Purification centers were established throughout Manchuria, in the areas of China occupied by Japan when war broke out between the two countries in 1937, and in Burma, Thailand and Singapore while under Japanese control during World War 11. Each of the

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purification centers engaged in legitimate activities. All,also, were involved in secret biological warfare research.12J3Thus Ishli’s new job was a perfect cover for his real assignment, which was to develop viable biological warfare weapons. Ping Fan

The center of Ishii’s new operations was Ping Fan, a suburb of Harbin less than a 40-minute drive from the city.l4 Once the decision was taken to relocate biological warfare research headquarters at Ping Fan, the local villagers were evicted from the land and forced to sell their property. A vast biological warfare complex began to emerge on the flat, dusty plain by the fall of 1936.Locals were told that the Japanesewere building a lumber mill there, and, ironically, humans tested at this new facility were called “marutas”, or “logs.”Of the 10,000-15,000 Chinese laborers used to build the base, more than a third died from overwork and harsh treatment. By the time the Ping Fan complex was completed in 1939,the camp comprised more than 6 square kilometers and one-hundred fifty buildings.*SIshii’s new headquarters was a state-of-the-artbiological warfare research facility, with dormitories for civilian workers, barracks for soldiers and police, and an arms magazine. There were also barns for test animals ranging from tree squirrels to camels, numerous laboratories, including one deslgned to work with frostbite, and three furnaces to dispose of animal and human corpses. In addition, there were recreational facilities, schools for the children of the Japanese residents, an enormous farm that produced food for the camp% inhabitants, greenhouses that would provide plants for biological warfare experiments, and an immense complex known as the Administration Building.l6 The Administration Building was the heart of the Ping Fan operation; it consisted of a series of interconnected structures, within which were two smaller buildings that served as prisons for housing those being prepared for biological warfare experiments. One structure held only male prisoners; the other accommodated men, women and some children. Prisoners either were smuggled in at night on a special train from Harbin, or were taken to the camp in covered trucks. They were hustled into underground tunnels that fed directly into the prison buildings. Other underground tunnels led from the prisons to the laboratories, pathology rooms, and crematoria. The prisons were designed to house up to 400 people, but it is believed that no more than 200 persons were held there at any given time.” Shortly after construction at Ping Fan commenced, Ishii was given command of a new unit, a nucleus selected from the old Togo Unit plus new recruits, who ran the Ping Fan station. The unit was known as the


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“Ishii Unit” from 1937-1941; to further conceal its biological warfare assignment, the unit was renamed “Unit 73 1” in 194 1, and it is under this name that the infamous Japanese biological warfare activities became known. At its peak of activity in 1941, Ping Fan had a staff of approximately 3,000, and oversaw at least five satellite camps scattered throughout Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Each of the satellite facilities was manned by 300 to 500 people, about 10 percent of whom were medical doctors and scientists and 15 percent were t e c h c a l support staff. The scientists, doctors, and techcians were rotated periodically. Therefore, during the nine years that Ping Fan and its sister units operated, thousands of Japanese-and collaborating Koreans-physicians, scientists, veterinarians and technicians were trained in biological warfare at these facilities,I8and many of these persons participated in human experimentation. While most of the camps’ staff were military personnel, a large proportion of the technical and scientific staff were civilian employees who joined these biological warfare units voluntarily.l9

Changchun and Mukden Pmg Fan was the best known of the biological warfare research centers, but several others merit attention. Changchun, a city in central Manchuria that in 1934 became the capital of Japan’spuppet colony, housed a biological warfare center that almost rivaled Ping Fan in the scope and the extent of its activities. Created under the same 1936 Imperial decree that authorized Pmg Fan, the Changchun facility was directed by Major Wakamatsu Yujiro, an unassuming, hard-working military veterinarian who sought as much anonymity as possible. Wakamatsu headed an organization known as the Kwantung Army Antiepizootic Protection of Horses Unit, commonly called “The Wakamatsu Unit.” Later it was given a numerical designation, “Unit 100,” to protect its secret biological warfare activities. The unit’s nominal assignment was to treat diseases that strike Army horses or other draft animals, and Unit 100 did conduct considerable research in this area. Its principal responsibility, however, was to engage in secret research in plant, animal, and human biological warfare.20.21 Unit 100 occupied a huge 20-square-kdometer site, with much of the land used as an experimental farm where both basic and exotic crops were cultivated. Some crops produced on the farm were subjected to experiments with a host of plant-lulling bacteria; other crops were tested with experimental herbicides and chemical pesticides. Its research center included laboratory buildings, stables for the animals to be used in experiments (threestables holding 50 horses each, as well as stables for oxen, sheep and the like), and the ubiquitous crematoria (at least three). A large, two-story

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structure that dominated the compound housed Wakamatsu’s headquarters and laboratories. Part of the building‘s basement and an abutting underground building contained a prison designed to hold 30 to 40 inmates; the prisoners were consigned to the various laboratories for human experimentation through a series of underground tunnels that radiated from this central building.21Like Ishii’s captives, Unit 100’sprisoners were ordinary criminals condemned to death, social miscreants, political dissenters, or guerilla partisans. Completed in 1939, the Changchun facility employed 600 to 800 persons throughout the year. Many of the staff were veterinarians and technicians; in fact, Unit 100 had a higher proportion of scientific personnel than did Unit 731. The technical people stationed in Changchun and Unit 100’s satellite facilities were rotated into other Army units once they completed their training or assigned tasks. Thus both Unit 100 and Unit 73 1 trained huge numbers of physicians, bacteriologists, veterinarians, chemists, botanists, and pathologists in some aspect of biological warfare. Many of those who underwent biological warfare training participated in human experiments; almost everyone in the camps was cognizant of “rumors about human experiments”22circulating throughout both units. Four years after Japan’s surrender, peasants living nearby discovered a large burial pit within the former Changchun facility. The farmers later recalled seeing “human corpses scattered over a five-hundred-meter-long area”, or digging through the surface dirt and seeing “an upper layer of human bodies. Even after digging two to five meters deep [they]found that there still were human bodies.”21 Unit 100 operated independently of Unit 731; Wakamatsu reported to the Kwantung Army’s Chef Veterinarian, and to the head of the War Ministry’s Veterinarian Service in Tokyo. Nevertheless Wakamatsu and Ishii collaborated closely, and their units participated in joint laboratory and field tests. One combined operation occurred during a serious border skirmish between Japan and the Soviet Union in 1939, the “Nomonhan Incident.” Men from both units poisoned water wells in Soviet-dominated Outer Mongolia and in Soviet territory adjacent to the scene of the clashes. “Suicide squads” went into Soviet territory sowing pesticides and herbicides on grasslands and freeing infected sheep and cattle to graze with Soviet animals in hope of spreading anthrax and other diseases through the regon. These efforts met with partial success; many Soviet soldiers became ill or died from diseases associated with the Japanese biological warfare attacks; crops and livestock also were adversely affected by the work of Units 73 1 and 100. The biological warfare attacks partially backfired on the Japanese, however, and they incurred several thousand casualties as a result of military personnel coming in contact with biological warfare agents spread by their compatriot^.^^


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Mukden (Shenyang),Manchuria’s most important industrial city, was the site for yet another Japanese biological warfare research center. Kitano Masaji, a Professor in the Manchurian (Army)Medical College in Mukden, dominated research at the Mukden facility and trained scores of scientists and technicians in biological warfare. (Kitano, a bitter rival, had replaced Ishii as head of Unit 731 in 1942.) In some respects, Kitano was a more important figure in Japanesebiological warfare research than either Ishii or Wakamatsu. By Imperial consent, he occupied dual roles as a professor in an important medical facility and as an officer in the Army Medical Corps, ultimately rising to the rank of Lieutenant General. Kitano was considered so powerful, that h s contemporaries referred to him as “the emperor.’Q4 ktano was also a brilliant scientist. His peers thought him a far better investigator than Ishi was, and he published numerous scholarly works, both durmg his stay in Manchuria and in the post-war period. Many of h s best publications were based on his research involving human experimentation at M ~ k d e nAlthough .~~ the Japanesedestroyed much of the Mukden facility at the end of World War 11, the Chinese later salvaged containers filled with human remains from research there. They are on display at the Mukden Medical College as a memorial to the victims of Japanese biological warfare research. 12,20 OTHER BIOLOGICAL WARFARE RESEARCH CENTERS

One of China’s ancient capitals, Nanking (Nanjing) was occupied by the Japanese in 1937 and subjected to a brutal rampage by soldiers, the infamous “Rape of Nanking.” On 18 April 1939, an Ishii Water Purification Unit was established in the city. It was known as the “Tama Unit,” and later as Unit Ei-1644. As usual, this unit’s publicly declared responsibility was to ensure nearby Army units had potable water; its real assignment was to engage in secret biological warfare studies. Unit Ei- 1644 was headed by one of Ishii’s long-time protkgis, Masuda Tomasuda, untd 1942, when he was replaced by another Ishii di~ciple.~ Unit Ei-1644’s biological warfare research center was housed in a commandeered Chinese hospital with a connecting annex where human experimentation was conducted. Prisoners were confined in a highly secured large dormitory; the number of prisoners held there generally was limited to 20-30 people. Research on humans covered a wide range of diseases, including anthrax, glanders, plague, and typhoid fever, as well as chemicals such as cyanide, arsenic, and heroin. In addition, Unit Ei-1644 worked with exotic toxins derived from poisonous snakes and blowfish. The Nanlung operation was smaller than the Manchurian research centers; Unit Ei- 1644 comprised approximately 1,500 persons. Within the

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unit only a small g r o u m m p o s e d of a comparatively few physicians, fewer than a dozen microbiologists, and a complement of support technicians and staff-participated in human experiments. Yet if the post-war testimony of Major General Sat0 Shunji, Chief of Ei-1644’s Training Detachment, is to be believed, this small biological warfare outpost produced several hundred well-trained biological warfare technicians each year. Sat0 boasted that from 1941-1943, “Under [his]direction...the Training Division each year trained about 300 bacteriologists with the object of employing them in bacteriological warfare.”2o Large biological warfare research facilities also existed in Peking (Beijing),Shanghai, Canton (Guangzhou),Hailar in Inner Mongolia, Singapore, Rangoon, and Bangkok. It is commonly accepted by Chinese historians, as well as local authorities in the other affected countries, that human experiments were conducted in these cities, as well as in a number of less well known communities. Unfortunately, little information concerning the nature of the research, or the number of humans tested, in these centers is currently available.13,2k31 THE DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION

Testing in humans was an essential part of Japan’s biologcal warfare program from its inception. Both the biologcal warfare program’s leaders and those who conducted the studies (both offensive and defensive)agreed that experiments with humans were crucial to the successful development of biological weapons. The most ardent supporters of biological warfare looked forward to worhng on humans; others may have had personal reservations, but rarely, if ever, expressed disagreement with the testing programs. Biological warfare proponents made only one concession to possible squeamish sensibilities by others: they cloaked the program in secrecy. Ishii, Kitano, Wakamatsu and the other project heads studied the effects on humans of virtually every known pathogen, chemical pesticide, and plant or animal poison. Attempts were made to infect humans with the organisms that cause plague, typhus, smallpox, yellow fever, tularemia, hepatitis, gas gangrene, tetanus, cholera, dysentery, glanders, anthrax, scarlet fever, undulant fever, tick encephalitis, “songo” or epidemic hemorrhagic fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, pneumonia, typhoid fever, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, venereal diseases, tuberculosis, salmonella, and other diseases that affected local populations in Manchuria and China. They also studied the effects of frostbite, both as an adjunct to infectious diseases and to develop protective methods against it. 12~19,32 During the 13 years of Japanese biological warfare research in Manchuria and China, laboratory testing involved more than 10,000 individuals, all of

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whom either died from tests or were lulled when they were no longer useful subjects. Major General Kawashima Kiyoshi, an important figure in Ping Fan’s research network from 1941-1945, testdied in 1949 that “the number of prisoners . . . who died [at Ping Fan] from the effects of experiments in infecting them with severe infectious diseases was no less than about 600 per annum.”20Thousandsmore were lulled in the other b i o l o g d warfare facilities. In general, subjects lasted for no more than two weeks, and only the rare individual lmgered longer than several months, before being “sacficed.”20

Evaluating Biological WarfareAgents If biological agents were to be used effectively as weapons of war, researchers needed to know the quantity of a pathogen necessary to infect large populations. In some experiments, subjects were injected with different amounts of pathogens to determine the dosage required to destroy an individual. In other experiments scientists forced humans to ingest contaminated foods, wear infected fabrics, or handle infected tools to determine whether these objects would be used in biological warfare. Other subjects were forced to drink dlfferent fluids such as milk, tea, and water contaming a specified dose of a pathogen under study.2o The biological warfare researchers kept meticulous records of their studies, recording in detail the suffering their subjects endured. One doctor investigating tuberculosis claimed in one trial that “all doses produced d i a r y tuberculosis which was fatal w i b one month in those injected Another doctor working with typhoid noted that with 10.0 and 1.O rng.”33 in one experiment, “Deaths occurred in 2 cases and 3 committed sui~ i d e . Kitano ” ~ ~ reported that he studied tick encephalitis by injecting humans with an infected mouse brain solution. One subject “produced symptoms after an incubation of seven days. Highest temperature was 39.8 C. T h s subject was sacrificed when fever was subsiding about the 12th day.” Kitano observed another patient for more than six months: “Fever is the first change. When the fever begins to subside, motor paralysis appears in the upper extremities, neck, face, eyelids and respiratory muscles. There are no significant sensor changes. No paralysis is observed in the tongue, muscles of deglutition [sic]or lower extremities. After recovery, paralysis may be permanent.”j5 Occasionally, staff members became frustrated when their assignments showed signs of failure. A Unit Ei- 1644 techmcian recalled a test conducted to determine whether arsenite could cause cardiac arrest. The technician forced six subjects to eat dumplings filled with arsenite, but the subjects did not become ill. He increased the dosage to ten times the original amount, but abandoned the project after failing to produce the desired results. The

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technician later complained “‘You can’t depend on the literature. No matter how much I fed them, it would be excreted by them a few days later.”’36 Sometimes the dead were more important than live patients for biological warfare researchers. Pathologists examined corpses with exceptional care and produced extraordinarily detailed reports. Examples include a 400-page pathology report on 30 anthrax-induced deaths, complete with exquisite pastel drawings of cells and body parts,37an 800-page report on plague deaths in two Manchurian communities illustrated with hundreds of pastel d r a w m g ~and , ~ ~a 350-pageautopsy report on 21 cases of glanders, also featuring pastel drawings.39 Units 731, 100, Ei-1644, and probably others, jointly utilized an outdoor biologcal warfare research facility at Anda, 146 kilometers north of Harbin.40From 1940-1 945 the Japanesetested prototype delivery systems for biologcal weapons at Anda and studied the effects of plague, anthrax, frostbite, and many other diseases on human subjects.20Subjects to be tested usually were taken to the Anda facility by airplane, since it had an excellent airfield and was less than two hours by air from Ping Fan. In a typical ordnance test, techcians would tie 10-15 human subjects to stakes set in a predetermined pattern, and then planes would drop several dozen bombs loaded with plague-infected fleas on the site. The bombs were supposed to detonate within a few hundred yards of the persons staked to the ground. After waiting a specified period of time for the fleas to infect the prisoners, the subjects were taken to Ping Fan or another biological warfare facility where the progress of the disease would be studied.20 Anda’s location in the extreme north of Manchuria made it an ideal place to study the effects of frostbite on humans. In early 1945, for example, researchers studied the effects of gas gangrene on humans in belowfreezmg temperatures. Ten Chinese prisoners were tied to stakes with their heads and backs shelded with thick quilted blankets and a heavy metal buffer. However, “their legs and buttocks were left unprotected.” Remote control bombs were exploded, and “the shrapnel, bearing gas gangrene germs, scattered all over the spot where the prisoners were bound”; each of the prisoners was “wounded in the legs or buttocks, and seven days later they died in great torment.”20The results of these frostbite tests were not disclosed, but Japanese biological warfare experts later testdied that they engaged in many frostbite experiments with Chinese and Soviet prisoners.2o Field Testing Japanesebiologcal warfare researchers also conducted field tests with a host of different pathogens on unsuspecting d i t a r y and civilian popula-


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tions in selected communities in China and Manchuria. Ishii ran local, small-scale field operations as early as his Beiyinhe days, and he and his colleagues initiated large-scaletests in July 1937, soon after the commencement of hostilities between Japan and China. Numerous Chinese reports from the battlefield claimed the invaders were employmg both chemical warfare and biological warfare, but many of these early accounts can be discounted as self-serving justifications by officials who had failed in battle.4143Later dispatches cannot be dismissed so readily.44In 1943, the extensive reports of biological warfare and chemical warfare attacks in C h n a moved President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue a statement condemning Japanese use of chemical warfare and biologcal warfare, and threatening that if Japan did not cease t h s “inhumane form of warfare . . . retaliation in kind and in full measure will be meted O U ~ . ” ~ ~ Between 1939 and 1942, Japaneseresearchers conducted at least twelve known biological warfare field tests. The first occurred during the Nomonhan Incident: in addition to the activities of the Suicide Squads from Units 731 and 100, described earlier, bacteria-filled artillery shells were launched against Soviet troops in several engagements. Although the Kwantung h y leaders seemed pleased with the results of these operations, the loss of several thousand Japanese soldiers to biological warfarerelated disease demonstrated one major hazard that attends the use of biologd weapons. Buoyed by the supposed success of biologcal warfare in Nomonhan, Ishii’s Unit 731 conducted a series of field tests throughout Manchuria and China proper. More than 1,000 water wells in the greater Harbin area were contaminated with typhoid bacilli in 1939 and 1940, the ensuing typhoid outbreaks ravaging villages with the disease.46In 1940 Units 73 1 and 100 caused an outbreak of cholera in Changchun. Members of the units toured the city, clalrmng they were distributmg a vaccine in order to prevent a cholera epidemic. The vaccine was actually a placebo, and once the people had been “vaccinated,” the squads had them ingest cholera-contaminatedwater and food before they were released. Cholera ravaged the city shortly after the squads completed their work.47 In July 1942, Unit 73 1 provided approximately 130 kg of paratyphoid A and anthrax as well as an unknown amount of typhus pathogens to a biological warfare operation carried out by Units 100 and Ei- 1644. Members of the latter two units disseminated these pathogens in wells, nearby marshlands, and the homes of unsuspecting villagers in the greater Nanking region; epidemics developed immediately afterwards.20Ishii tried still other biological warfare experiments on the Chinese in Nanking. His men distributed chocolates impregnated with anthrax to local youngsters, expecting the children to contract the disease and cause an epidemic. While anthrax cannot be transmitted in h s fashion, Japanesebiological warfare researchers later testified that some of the children contracted chol-

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era.20 Ishi and his men also distributed dumplings injected with typhoid or paratyphoid to 3,000 Chinese prisoners of war who were then freed and sent home. The intention was to have the freed prisoners act as agents to spread the disease, but records currently available do not indicate whether Ishii’s dumpling plan succeeded.20 In 1940, Unit 73 1 conducted large biologcal warfare tests at the seaside resort of Ning Bo, south of Hangchow (Hangzhou).Over a period of five months, Unit 731 spread 70 kg of typhus rickettsia, 50 kg of cholera bacteria, and 5 kg of plague-infectedfleas among the local population. They used a variety of methods to distribute the pathogens: contamination of water reservoirs, wells, and ponds; aerial spraying to disseminate infected wheat and millet grains; and dropping small bombs containing infected fleas.I5Unit 731’s efforts precipitated plague, cholera, and typhus epidemics in Ning Bo and surrounding communities. More than 500 people perished in the tests, and plague epidemics, whch were virtually unknown in Ning Bo before 1940, recurred in 1941, 1946, and 1947, killing several thousand civilians. A documentary film of the Ning Bo expedition was shown to scientists and army officers in both Manchuria and Japan; it was reported that the audiences responded enthusiastically to the film.20 One of the most prolonged biological warfare field tests was conducted by the Japanese in Hunan province from early spring through December 1941. A team of approximately 30 bacteriologists spread biological warfare pathogens throughout the sprawling province, killing at least 500-700 people and infecting thousands more with one or more of the diseases spread during the tests.15,20,48 Other large field trials included a 1942 experiment in Non Gan county, Manchuria, where saboteurs trained at Ping Fan wandered throughout the county dropping flasks of plague-infected fleas into wells and reservoirs. They also scattered plague-infected fleas throughout Non Gan’s rice and wheat fields and distributed pathogens along roads and paths. Shortly thereafter plague outbreaks occurred throughout Non Gan county, lulling at least 300 vlllagers. Many hundreds more became ill with the disease, and many of those who went untreated presumably died. Later in the winter the Japanese and local collaborators set fire to the villages in the area in an effort to stanch the epidemic they helped create, displacing 4,000-5,000 families.l5 1942 was the last year Japan conducted large biological warfare field trials, but small-scale testing in the field continued until the end of the war. Several factors may have contributed to reducing the scope and number of tests at this time. The tests at Anda demonstrated that most of the prototype delivery systems were inadequate (pathogens burned up in steel artillery shells upon impact; some bombs’ guidance systems did not work; other bombs were too expensive to produce, and so forth), and the authorities may have decided to rein in field tests until better weapon ordnance


35

could be developed. Moreover, Ishii was relieved of his command in Ping Fan by mid-1942 and moved to Nanlung. His successor, Kitano Masaji, was more inclined to laboratory research rather than wide-ranging field tests and may have decided to husband increasingly scarce resources for laboratory studies on humans. Finally, with the onset of offensive operations by United Nations forces in 1943, the Japanese may have been too hard pressed to expend more resources in biological warfare testing. JAPANESE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AND SCIENTIFIC ETHICS

Ishii Shiro enjoyed boasting to friends that Japan’s biological warfare project was his l‘secret of secrets.’’ In fact, Japan was able to conceal its biological warfare activities, including human experimentation, from the outside world for a long time. The United States, for example, did not regard the Japanese as a serious biological warfare threat until 1943.2Most American experts discounted Chinese reports of Japanese biological warfare and chemical warfare attacks prior to 1943, believing the Chinese were engaging in propaganda to attract greater world sympathy to their cause. These experts could not accept the possibility that an Asian country known in pre-war days for its shoddy and gimcrack products was capable of mounting a serious biological warfare program.* In Japan, the story was quite different: most of the Japanese establishment should have been cognizant of the biological warfare program from 1931 or earlier. People serving in important positions in the Amy, and probably the Navy, in Parliament, and in much of the scientificcommunity possessed considerable knowledge of the scope of the nation’s biological warfare research plan, includmg human testing. The biological warfare program required too much money, material, and manpower for these leaders to have remained ignorant of what was tahng place in the biological warfare research centers. Several members of the Imperial family were privy to the “secret of secrets.” One of Emperor Hirohito’s brothers visited Pmg Fan, and Prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi, the Emperor’s cousin and a close intimate, worked with the Ping Fan leaders. It is uncertain whether Hirohito was aware of the human experiments,49but most students of the period believe he knew that biological warfare research was taking place in Manchuria and elsewhere within his e m ~ i r e . ~ ~ , ~ O The Japanese establishment appeared to be unmoved by the ethical issues of the biologcal warfare program. Experiments involving humans could have been stopped had the ruling elite raised objections; it appears that no one did. Japan’sleading scientists supported all aspects of biologcal warfare research: some recruited promising young researchers for the program; others knew what type of experimentation was taking place at the

36


biological warfare stations and participated in supporting research at their universities; stdl others volunteered to pursue research in the biological warfare installations in Manchuria and in China. The few scientists who expressed reservations either were threatened with reprisals if they did not support biological warfare work or, once enlisted in the cause, were informed that there was no turning back. Thirty-two years later, Dr. Sue0 Akunoto recalled going to Ping Fan in 1944, thinking he would be domg “preventive medicine and medical research.” “Within a month I knew everydung,’’ he told a reporter; he was “in a living hell.” Dr. Alumoto went on to say, “I protested three times to my superior. He told me you came here of your own free will. You have no right to go away.”5*A young faculty member of Kyoto Imperial University recalled that when he expressed reservations about s e w in Pmg Fan, the Head of the University’s medical school threatened him, “If you can’t do what you’re told, I’ll see to it that you are put out of the univer~ity.”~~ Dissenters were a small minority among the biological warfare recruits; the vast majority of those who served in the biological warfare program were willing participants. They either were unconcerned about ethlcal issues or had convinced themselves that such issues were irrelevant in biologcal warfare research.

Scientific Hubris and Biological WarfareResearch A form of scientifichubris was evident in this indifference to the ethical question of human testing, particularly in the comments of biological warfare leaders like Ishii Shiro and Hojo Enryo. For example, Ishii addressed the ethical issue in a pep talk to his unit, telling h s men, “Our god-given mission as doctors is to challenge all varieties of disease-causing micro-organisms; to block all roads of intrusion into the human body; to annihilate all foreign matter resident in our bodies; and to devise the most expeditious treatment possible.” The Ping Fan work, however, was ddferent; its mission, “is the completely [sic]opposite of these principles, and may cause us some anguish as doctors. Nevertheless, I beseech you to pursue this research, based on the dual thrill of ( 1) a scientist to exert efforts to probing for the truth in natural science and research into, and discovery of, the unknown world, and (2)as a military person, to successfully build a powerful military against the enemy.”53 Hojo, once a lieutenant of Ishii’s, expressed similar sentiments to a German audience in 1941. “It is questionable whether in the case of a nation fighting for its honor such an idea of justice as propounded by the League of Nations [in outlawing biological warfare] will be upheld or not. In the case of a victorious enemy such a moral agreement might possibly be only a dead letter.” Hojo also offered a rationale for offensive biological

HARRIS JAPANESE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

37

warfare research: “Each and every state will take effective and precautionary measures against a bacteriological attack . . . . Should an enemy attack us with all sorts of bacterial agents, then it would be definitely necessary to have effective precautionary measures....It is undoubtedly true, however, that one cannot take the best possible precautionary measures without a thorough understanding of the methods employed by the enemy in a bacteriologcal attack.” He predicted that “in future times the results [of biologcal warfare studies] are going to be used for bacteriologcal warfare. In case a nation should find out these [currently]unclear epidemiological conditions for some agent and use them to best advantage, it could be victor[ious]in a bacteriological war.”54 Some who served in the biological warfare program fancied themselves humanitarians committed to finding cures for ailments that had afflicted manlund for centuries. Consequently, these dedicated scientists rarely expressed remorse or confessed to any guilt in the postwar years. Their experiments with humans, they reasoned, were simply part of the process for advancing scientific knowledge. If, in the course of their research, they discovered useful information that would help their country achieve its rightful place in the world, so much the better, Moral considerations were not an issue when the nation’s future was at stake. Many did use the knowledge gained in their biological warfare studies to help ease human affictions in postwar Japan. htano published many scientific papers on tuberculosis, tick encephalitis, songo fever, and other diseases on the basis of his work with humans in both Mukden and in Ping Fan.24Naito Ryiochi, who worked closely with Ishii from the beginning, established the Green Cross Company, which employed many servicemen from Units 731 and 100 and now is a multinational pharmaceutical company.55Nine former Unit 731 scientists eventually served as presidents of Japan’s prestigious Institute for Preventive other former biological warfare specialists became professors or administrators of leading Japanese universities and research institute^.^^ Why did these men and other scientists willingly participate in the biological warfare research program? Scientists and physicians who served in the Army had little choice: they went where the War Ministry sent them. Of course, they could have requested reassignment once they became aware of the nature of the biological warfare studies, but most did not. Other military and civilian workers went to Manchuria in search for opportunity and adventure. In 1930s Japan, Manchuria had a reputation as a place where people could make a fortune quickly, and some scientists were part of the horde of fortune seekers who journeyed d ~ e r e . ~ ~ M ascientists ny willingly enlisted in the program, believing they could pursue research unhampered by limited budgets. Moreover, they wanted to engage in “pure” research and did not want ethical questions to delay or retard their

38


work. For these people ethics simply was not an issue; they understood the difference between right and wrong and it did not matter. Many of the scientific and medical researchers were deluded by the scientific hubris embodied in the statement by Ishii cited above. For them, what counted was that they were free to conduct research in areas of interest to them. For scientists like Ishii, Kitano, Wakamatsu, Naito, Masuda, Hojo, and a host of others, the end justified the means. Their work may have required secrecy, but by using euphemisms to disguise their use of involuntary human subjects they could publish their work. For such researchers fame and fortune apparently was more important than their responsibility for the deaths of large numbers of innocent humans. Japanese Nationalism and Racial Attitudes These Japanese scientists grew up and were educated in a political environment increasingly dominated by ultra-radical nationalists who forcibly imposed thought control on the population in the 1930s. Consequently, some succumbed to the nationalist credo and others went along with the tide. When Major Masuda Yoshiyasu, a former pharmacy officer, was asked what he thought of the biologcal warfare work conducted at Ping Fan he replied, “We did not think that way. We were workmg for our country. We did as we were told.” As for Ishii, “I thought General Ishii was a great man, an important man.”56 Extreme nationalism and ethnocentricity among the Japanesepeople in this period accounts in large part for their lack of concern with ethical questions relating to human experimentation and biologcal warfare. In developing a culture that emphasized the uniqueness of the Japanese “race,” Japan had become a xenophobic and racist society. Their Shinto rellgion, their light skin by Asian standards, and a political system based upon belief in the divinity of the emperor convinced many Japanese that they were racially superior to other Asians, as well as to people of mixed race^.^',^^ (Even today, Japan maintains a hgh degree of “ e h c purity,” and experiences periodic eruptions of racism.59)Leaders in prewar Japan espoused their nation’s Manifest Destiny; as a special people operating under divine inspiration, Japanwas destined to lead eastern Asia into a new era of prosperity. Convinced that mainland China and the eastern part of the Soviet Union would fall within the Japanese orbit in the near future, these leaders believed destiny eventually would make the special Japanese culture pre-eminent throughout the world. Inevitably, these attitudes infected Japanese science and medicine. In 1934 the periodical The New Iapan Medcine Report boasted, “Japan’s medicine is now independent from the medical community of the world.


39

We have already kicked off the League of Nations(;] it is the feeling of the people that in the field of science, others will look up to Japan.”” Other scientific and medical periodicals were equally chauvinistic about the state of Japanese scientific development. Imbued with these ideas, biological warfare practitioners believed they could experiment with “inferior” peoples with impunity. Their efforts, they reasoned, were part of the scheme to achieve the nation’s destiny. They believed sincerely that the deaths of these people of little worth would benefit the superior Japaneserace, and in the end, their elimination would make the world a better place.6’47 There was no need to be remorseful or guilt-ridden.68 Contemporary JapaneseAttitudes

If the biological warfare program was a direct outgrowth of Japan’s nationalism and effort to become the dominant power in Asia, what about today? The answer to the question of whether Japanese attitudes towards science and ethics have changed over the past half century is somewhat murky. Thirty-seven years after the Japanese surrender to the United Nations, Ishii’s daughter commented in an newspaper interview, “Were it not for the war and his chosen career, his genius might have flourished in a field other than medical science, possibly politics. My father might have made a unique statesman. What he did, or was alleged to have committed in the line of duty as a medical officer and soldier in the imperial JapaneseArmy, shall be denounced by any moral standard. Even so, one must not forget that it all happened under abnormal circumstances. It was war.“69 It is understandable that a daughter might defend a father’s reputation, no matter what heinous deeds he may have committed. Her attitude, however, is one with which many in modern Japan identdy. Unlike Germany, where the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities are examined and discussed openly by politicians and concerned citizens, there is little debate in democratic Japan of the atrocities committed during Japan’s 14-year rampage in East A~ia.~OWhen accounts of biological warfare outrage surface, the official response is that the tests took place “during the most extraordinary wartime conditions,” and are “most regrettable from the viewpoint of humanity.”71 Official denial and even cover-upof evidence of biological warfare activities continues today. For example, in 1991workmen excavating a site near Ishii’s Tokyo headquarters discovered the remains of 35 humans, and initial pathology examinations disclosed that none of the bodies could have been Japanese. At this point the Health and Welfare Ministry prohibited further research on the remains. In fact, the Ministry attempted unsuc-

40


cessfully to have the bones destroyed. In the face of tremendous bureaucratic obstruction, three hospitals in Tokyo refused to study the rem a i n ~The . ~ ~issue of Japanese biological warfare activities in Singapore also surfaced in 1991. There is ample evidence that Singapore was the site of a major biological warfare laboratory during the Japaneseoccupation: the individual who directed the laboratory confirmed its existence in a newspaper interview, as did several people who worked as clerks or librarians at the facility. Moreover, it is known that Ishii’s aide, Naito Ryiochi, brought more than 1,000 persons, principally soldiers, to act as guards, to Singapore to work at the 1aborato1-y.~~ Nevertheless the Japanese Foreign Ministry refused to face the facts, denying that the government had any knowledge of a secret biologcal warfare laboratory in Singapore. “We have no record of any laboratory,” stated Taizo Watanabe, an official in the Foreign Ministry.74 Most (but not all75)Japanesehistorians who have studied the biological warfare activities rationalize the human laboratory and field testing: “It is clear that the human experimentation was bad”; nevertheless, “it is also clear that many physicians of conscience and thinlung. . . [participatedin biological warfare experiments] and similar activities. These are people who would never lull another human being in the normal social context.” In fact, “they are the type of people who would be greatly troubled if they just injured another person in an automobile a~cident.”~ In another passage by the noted historian Tsuneishi Kei’ichi, he expressed the consensus of contemporary Japanese thought on the biological warfare episode. “NO matter what was done, anything was permissible so long as it was ‘for the good of society’...in every day society, there is no distinction on reasons for lulling. In the field of science, however, killing can result in new findings or a revolutionary breakthrough which would benefit all of mankind. The scientist who brought about the same would naturally make quite a name for him~elf.”~

JAPANESEBIOLOGICAL WARRIORS: WAR CRIMINALS OR INFORMATION SOURCES1 The use of humans in Japanese biologcal warfare experiments was unique; insofar as we know, none of the other nations that engaged in biologcal warfare research tested humans involuntarily. During the Hitler era, the Germans performed extensive medical experiments on the inmates of the concentration camps, but these experiments did not involve biological warfare agents. Germany’s biological warfare program was too small to encompass human testing. It seems likely, given the ethical standards of many German doctors and scientists at the time, that they would have


41

engaged in human testing for biologcal warfare research had the program expanded.’ ~ 3 ~ At the end of World War 11, biologcal warfare scientists from the Allied Nations were not overly concerned about Japanese human experimentat i ~ n . ~ In ~ , fact, * ’ while German doctors were being tried in Nuremberg as war criminals, Japanese biological warfare experts were being wooed by American and Soviet scientists in a campaign to secure the data and expertise they allegedly possessed. Soviet representatives in Tokyo lobbied hard throughout 1946 and 1947 for an opportunity to interview Ishii. Their ostensible purpose was to secure evidence necessary to try captured Japanese scientists as war criminals; their real objective was to enlist Ishii’s assistance for their biologcal warfare program.3zImmediately following Japan’s surrender, the U.S. sent Lieutenant Colonel Murray Sanders, a Section Head in the Fort Detrick biologcal warfare facility, to Tokyo. In his interviews with leading scientists within the Japanese military hierarchy, Sanders made it clear that his mission was to contact Japanese biological warfare experts and extract information useful to the American biological warfare program, but he was not seelung evidence to be used in subsequent war crimes trials.*2 Several months later, Fort Detrick officials dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Arvo Thompson on a similar mission to Tokyo. By early 1946 Thompson had learned the Japanese biological warfare research involved human subjects, but this did not seem to affect his investigation. Thompson stressed that his mission was solely to gather data on biological warfare and that any information the Japanese disclosed would not be used as evidence in war crimes trials.19American scientists and military investigators continued to negotiate with the principals in the Japanese biological warfare program, including Ishii, ICltano, Wakamatsu, Naito, and Masuda, throughout 1946 and 1947. Rather than seelung confessions to be used in criminal proceedings, they reassured their former enemies that they wanted only data, especially as it related to human experiments, that could enhance the American biologcal warfare program. The investigators affirmed that no one would be prosecuted if the Japanese disclosed the information they possessed. In the course of nearly three years of probing Japanese experts for biologcal warfare data, not one American scientist privy to the negotiations raised issues of morality or ethics. No one accused these men of being war criminals who had committed crimes against humanity or said the U.S. should not be dealing with them. In fact, the opposite view predominated. Dr. Edwin V. Hill, Chief of Basic Sciences at Fort Detrick, encapsulated the U.S. position in a 1947 dispatch to General Alden C. Waitt, Chief of the Chemical Corps: “Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented and amplified previous aspects of this field. It rep-

42


resents data which have been obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of many millions of dollars and years of work. Information has accrued with respect to human susceptibility to those diseases as indicated by specific doses of bacteria. Such information could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to human experimentation. These data were secured with a total outlay of Y250,OOO to date, a mere pittance by comparison with the actual cost of the studies.”s3In the end, American scientists in conjunction with American Occupation authorities arranged a cover-up of the Japanesecrimes in exchange for biological warfare data.2 More than 5000 Japanese were tried by the Western powers as war criminals, but not one high-level Japanese biological warfare expert was ever charged with a crime. The Soviet Union prosecuted one biological warfare war crimes trial involving 12 Japanese soldiers in Khabarovsk, Siberia in 1949; however, the trial was of questionable value, given the Stalinist Soviet justice system at the time. The defendants, a handful of low-levelbiological warfare officials and some Kwantung Army officers, all confessed to participating in terrible crimes, including the murders of Soviet men, women, and children. They were convicted by the court, but given extremely llght sentences, ranging from 2 years to a maximum of 25 years’ imprisonment.20Many of them did not serve full terms, and all were pardoned and repatriated to Japan in 1956. Not surprismgly, there has been speculation that the Soviets made a deal with Japanese biological warfare experts similar to the one their American counterparts arranged. One of the ironies of the Japanese-American deal on biological warfare data was that the information proved of limited value, m a k q the loss of thousands of lives even more tragic. Although the American biological warfare scientists made use of Japanese data in the immediate postwar years, American research quickly outstripped that of the Japanese,84and the human experimentation information quickly lost its lustre. Nevertheless, questions persist concerning the morality of using mformation gathered in such an immoral way. One consideration is the validity of the findings. Many contemporary scientists doubt the honesty of researchers involved in programs with strong political or ideologcal overtones. For example, some have claimed many Nazi medical experiments were f r a u d ~ l e n t .Even ~~,~ if ~the research is scientfically valid, many scholars object on ethical grounds to usmg this information. In May 1989, 200 scholars met in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to debate the issue. A reporter covering the meeting observed, “The subject brought pain and agony to many of the scholars, some of whom had lost relatives in the Holocaust, others who said they were at once intrigued and angered by the data. They came up with no conclusions, only more questions and a stronger thirst for answers.”87Although the Japanese experiments have not gained the notoriety of those done in Nazi Germany, and

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therefore have yet not aroused fierce public controversy, the ethical issues they raise are equally poignant. BIOLOGICAL WARFARE TODAY

In 1972 the world's major powers attempted once more to outlaw biologcal warfare, and more than 1 10 countries have signed the Biologcal Weapons Convention.RR Nevertheless, biological warfare research continues today, although nations who still engage in such studies-including most advanced industrial countries as well as several Third World countries-claim their research is purely defensive in n a t u ~ e .When ~ ~ , ~this rationale was used in the past, it led inevitably to offensive biologcal warfare research. Today, however, some scientists do raise ethical questions concerning biological warfare research. Professor Leonard A. Cole of Rutgers University, has been in the forefront of those seelung to curb such re~earch,~' but he is not just a voice in the wddemess. Alarmed by the Reagan Administration's apparent plan to increase biological warfare research, more than 500 scientists, including three Nobel laureates, signed a 1988 pledge refusing to participate in biological warfare studies and urging others to boycott such Nevertheless, for every scientist who refuses to participate in biological warfare research, there are others prepared to take his or her place. Under President George Bush the United States has taken the lead in t y n g to stem the proliferation of biological yet the U.S. continues to support "defensive" biologcal warfare re~earch.~"~* German scientists have been accused repeatedly of assisting Libya and Iraq in developing facilities for both chemical warfare and biological warfare,99and French, Canadian, British, and Swiss experts are known to have assisted many countries in their biologcal warfare programs. In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, United Nations inspectors uncovered chemical warfare complexes scattered throughout Iraq; these facilities were probably built with the assistance of foreign nationals. loo Suspicions about Iraqi biological warfare capabilities also remain. I o l It is evident that the moral issues relating to biological warfare have not affected many of the world's scientists as the twentieth century draws to a close. The frightening examples of the Japanese biologcal warfare experiments, as well as those of the Nazi doctors, have not deterred those who still seek fame and fortune, regardless of ethical considerations. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Japan signed the Geneva Protocol in 1925, but its Parliament did not ratdy it until 1970.

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2. For a fuller description of Japanese biological warfare activities see HARRIS, S. 1992.JapaneseBiological Warfare Experiments and the American Cover-up. Routledge. New York. In press. 3. TSUNEISHI, K. & T. ASANO. 1982.[The Bacteriological Warfare Unit And The Suicide Of Two Physicians.] S a h s e n Butai to Jiketsu Ita Futari no Igakusha. Shincho-Sha Publishing. Tokyo. I have used an English translation of thls work lundly provided by Mr. Norman Covert, Public Information Officer, USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Md. 4.ANON.No Date (1946or 1947).Military and Biographical History of ISM Shiro. Typescript copy, Record Group 331,Ahed Operational and Occupation Headquarters, Boxes 1772/330,The National Archves. 5. Telephone interview with Dr. Shuich Kato, Professor of Medicine, University of California, Davis, 6 March 1989. 6. Ishii was a heavy dnnker, a frequenter of geisha houses, where he enjoyed the entertainment of 15- and 16-year-oldtrainees, and a notorious embezzler. Ishli’s personal habits are discussed in Ref. 2. 7. Quoted in Ref. 3,pp. 50-51. 8. Interviews with MI. Han Xiao, Deputy Director of the Ping Fan Museum, 8 June 1989, Mr. Sheng Zhan Jie, Section Head of Enghsh, Department of Foreign Languages, Harbin Normal University, 7-10 June 1989, and Mr. Wen Ye, Director of the Museum of the Martyrs, Harbin, 9 June 1989. 9. HAN,X. 1984. Bacterial factory in Beiymhe, Zhong Ma City, The Harbin Historical Chronicle. Harbin. People’s Republic of China. (Translated by Ms. Lu Cheng). 10. DONG,Z. Y. 1987.Kwantung Army Unit Number 731.Historical Material on JilinHistory, edited by the Jilin Branch of the Committee on Culture and History. Changchun, People’s Republic of China. (Translated by Ms. Wang Qing Ling]. 1 1. There is some confusion as to the dates r e l a w to the Beiymhe facility. Mr. Han Xiao, the foremost authority on Japanesebiological warfare activities in Manchuria, gives the date in hs article as 1935.He now believes the correct date is 1936.Letter to the author, 1 1 November 1989. 12. MORIMURA, S. 1983.The D d ’ s Gluttony, Vol. I. Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo. 13. YEN, P.M. 1991.Straits Times uncovers S’pore connection in clandestine war operation. WWII germ lab secret. Singapore Straits Times, September 19:l. 14. Ping Fan today is part of Harbin, and is considered the southernmost district of the city. 15. HAN,X. 1971.Record of the actual events of the bacteriological factory in Ping Fan. People’s China, Vol. 3.People’s Republic of China. (Translated by Ms. Qing Ling Wang). 16. HAN,X. 1988.Brief introduction to the remains of the Japanese bacterial factory. Harbin History Magazine, Vol. 4. Harbin, People’s Republic of China. 17. HAN,X. 1988.The remains of “The Square Building“ and “The Special Prison“ of Unit 731. Harbin Gazette. Special Issue Number 4. Harbin, People’s Republic of China. (Translated by Mrs. Lu Chang).

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18. Other thousands were trained by people not directly responsible to Ishii or h s subordinates; see below. 19. THOMPSON, Lt. Col. A.T. 1946. Report on Japanese Biological Warfare, 31 May 1946. Record Group 330, the National Archives. Thompson’s report stated that at the time of Japan’s surrender, Ping Fan employed 35 Army surgeons, 18 pharmacologists, 25 hygienic officers, 10 t e c h c a l officers, and approximately 100 medical soldiers and cidian employees (Supplement, P.2). 20. ANON.1950. Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons. Moscow. Foreign Languages Publishing House. 21. ZHOU,X. 1986.An Investigation into the Remains of Army Unit 100. Changchun Cultural And Historical Materials, Vol. 4. Changchun, People’s Republic of Chma. (Translated by Ms. Qing Ling Wang). 22. During United Nations interrogation sessions in 1946 and 1947, surviving personnel from Unit 73 1, Unit 100, and members of other biological warfare units would refer frequently to “rumors” of human experiments, while denying having participated in such tests. See also Ref. 19. 23. HAN,X. 1989. The suicide squads of the 731 Troop in the Nomonhan Incident. Harbin Gazette, Number 2. (Translated by Ms. Lu Cheng). 24. TsuNEisHi, K. 1981. Kieta Saikmsen Butai. [The Germ Warfare Unit That Disappeared] Kaimei-Sha. Tokyo. All citations are from an English translation lundly provided by Mr. Norman Covert, USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Md. 25. Kitano published at least two dozen scholarly papers based on his work with involuntary human subjects. He used a code, known to h s readers, referring to test subjects as “monkeys,” rather than a speclfic subspecies such as “Taiwan monkey,” when he was alluding to human experiments. See Ref. 24. 26. Interviews with Mr. Han Xiao, 7, 8 June 1989, 2 June 1991, and Professor Xu Wei, Harbin Normal University, 2, 3 June 1991. 27. Personal observations by the author on a visit to the ruins of the extensive biological warfare research station in Hailar, 5, 6 June 1991. Unfortunately, local authorities refused to grant permission for foreign scholars to review documents allegedly substantiating human experimentation in Hailar that are housed in the municipal archive. 28. ANON.1991. No record of war lab in S’pore, says Tokyo. [AFPdispatch]. The Singapore Straits Times. 22 September:1. 29. YEN,P.M. 1991. US Army records mention wartime germ lab in S’pore. The Singapore Straits Times. 25 September:1. 30. YEN,P.M. 1991. Germ lab’s head says work solely for research, vaccines. The Singapore Straits Times, 11 November:1,3. 31. Letter from Ms. Zhu Xiaoyang to the author, Changchun, 14 November 1991. 32. ANON.1947. Deposition of Naito Ryoichi, 24 January 1947. Record Group 153, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), The National Archives.

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33. ANON.1947. Interview with Dr. Hideo Futagi, 15 November 1947. Document 020, AA, Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. It is possible that

Dr. Futagi exaggerated his success, s i n e tuberculosis usually acts much more slowly than he claimed. 34. ANON.1947, Interview with Dr. Tabei [Kanau], 24 November 1947. Document 022, AC, Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. 35. ANON.No date. Information Furnished by Drs. Yuho Kashara and Masaji Kitano. Document 0 19, Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. 36. Quoted in Ref. 3, p. 124. 37. ANON.No date. The Report of “A”. Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. 38. ANON.No date. The Report of “Q”. Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. 39. ANON.No date. The Report of “G”. Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. 40. Nothmg remains of the Anda test grounds. The Japanese destroyed whatever structures existed there at the time of their surrender. The ruins were swallowed up by the new city of Anda, whch was developed to meet the needs of the fledChinese petroleum industry. 41. Copies of a series of field dispatches from 1937-1942 were lundly provided by Professor Milton Leitenberg of the University of Maryland and translated by Ms. Qing Ling Wang. Some field dispatches are so hysterical and filled with contradictions that they are obvious distortions of the truth; other claims of chemical warfare and biological warfare attacks were supported by independent foreign observers, and can be accepted as genuine. See also Refs. 42 and 43 for an opposing view. 42. WAITT, A.H. 1942. Poison gas in thls war. The New Republic 106 563-565. 43. ANON.1942. Telegram from Chunglung to Milid, No. 205, 14 June 1942. Record Group 218, CCS 385.5, Japan (6-14-421, The National Archves. 44. The New York Times reported more than 50 alleged incidents of Japanese biological warfare and chemical warfare attacks in China from the outbreak of fightmg until July 1945. 45. Quoted in a dispatch from China’s Ambassador to the United States, T. V. Soong, to Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, Washmgton, 6 June 1943, Leitenberg Collection. Roosevelt was in a position to make good on his threat: by June 1943 the U.S. biological warfare program was well underway. See Ref. 2. 46. Interviews with Mr. Han Xiao in Ping Fan, 7 June 1989 and Mrs. Ada Pivo of Encino, California, 7 February 1989. 47. HAN,X. 1987. Compilation of Camp 731 Fascist savage acts. Harbin Gazette. Number 3. Harbin, People’s Republic of Chna. 48. WILLIAMS, P. & D. WALLACE. 1989. Unit 731. Hodder & Stoughton. London. 49. HARRIS, R. & J. PAXTON. 1982. A Hgher Form of Killing. Hill and Wang. New York. 50. BEHR,E. 1989. Hirohito, Behind The Myth. Villard Books. New York. 51. SAHR, J. 1976. Japan Accused of WWII Germ Deaths. Washmgton Post. 19 November: A 1, 19. 52. Quoted in Ref. 3, p. 137. 53. Quoted in Ref. 24, p. 71. 1941. About Bacteriological Warfare, Lecture to the 54. Hoio, E., Lt. COL.(MED.)


55.

56.

57.

58. 59.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

7 1.

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Army Medical School. English translation of the German translation from the Japanese. Record Group 112, Entry 295A, Box 9, ALSOS, The National Archves. Prior to his Berlin assignment, Hojo worked with Ishii at Ping Fan; he became Surgeon General of the Army in democratic postwar Japan. ANON.1989. Black blood and white genes: A study of the tie-in between Unit 731, the Green Cross Company and the Institute for Preventive Medicine. Days Japan (Tokyo).June: 76-91. A. C., LT. COL.1946. Stenographic Transcript of Interrogation of THOMPSON, Major Yoshiyosa Masuda in Tokyo Japan on February 9, 1946. In Stenographic Transcript of Lt. General Masaji Kitano in Tokyo by Colonel S. E. Whiteside and Colonel A. H. Schwichtenbesg on 11 January 1946. Document 004, Dugway Proving Grounds Library, Utah. PRITCHARD, R. J. & S. M. ZAIDE. 1981. The Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York. SCHOENBERG, K. 1990. Issue of Japanese Racism Grows with Immigration. The Los Angeles Times. 1 January: A l , A20,A22. The small (1-2%) aboriginal population and resident Korean community continue to suffer discrimination on the part of the majority of Japanese. Throughout the 1980s, Japanese politicians found themselves in dfficulty because of their racist pronouncements concerning Afncan Americans, Latino-Americans, and many of their Asian neighbors. Quoted in Ref. 3, p. 102. J. 1986. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. DOWER, Pantheon Books. New York. BERGER, M. 1988.43Years later, Japan is Still Sortingout Its Role in the War. The San Francisco Chronicle. 5 August: Part A, 11, 1. SaiNEIDER, K. 1988. E.P.A. to Relax Rules on Microbe Tests. The New York Times. 11 May: A16. ANON.1989. Pentagon Money Stirs Germ Warfare Accusations. The New York Times. 19 March: A1 7. WEISMAN, S.R. 1989. Japan and the War: Debate on Censors is Renewed. The New York Times. 8 October: A10. WEISMAN, S.R. 1990. Fellow Asians, Yes, but Where’s the Fellowship? The New York Times, 3 January: A4. Conversations with Professor Peter Dus, Stanford University during 1988 and 1989. It is interesting to note that in the postwar period, not one of the biologcal warfare principals expressed regret, or offered an apology for his behavior. TABATA, M. 1982. Daughter’s-Eye View of Lt. Gen. Ishii, Chief of “Devil’s Brigade.” The Japan Times. 29 August: 12. See, for example, HABERMAN, C. 1988. Japanese Cut “Late Emperor,” The New York Times. 21 January: C21. One exception to this statement is Morimura’s three-volume novel, The Devil’s Gluttony (Ref. 12).Unfortunately, this remarkable novel is as yet unpublished in English. Statement of a government official, Tanabe Kunio, to Parliament in April 1982. Quoted in HABERMAN, C. 1988. Uproar Over Japanese Textbooks. The New York Times. 13 June: A3.

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72. ANON.1991. No record of war lab in Spore, says Tokyo. Singapore Straits Times. 22 September: 3. 73. YEN, P.H. 1991. Germ lab‘s head says work solely for research, vaccines. Singapore Straits Times, 1 1 November: 1 . 74. YEN,P.M. 1991. No record of war lab in Spore, says Tokyo. Singapore Straits Times. 22 September: 3. 75. One exception is Professor Matsumura of Keio University. See his comments in ANON.1991. The grisly history of Unit 731. Singapore Straits Times. 19 September: 1 . 76. MULLER-HILL, B. 1988. Murderous Science. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 77. HILBERC, R. 1961. The Destruction of the European Jews. New Viewpoints. New York. 78. KLEE,E. 1983. Euthanasie im NS-Staat. [Euthanasia in the National Socialist State]. Patmos-Verlag. Frankfurt. 79. NYISZLI, M. 1960. Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account. F. Fell. New York. 80. LIFTON,R.J. 1986. The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and the Psychology of Kdling. Basic Books.New York. 8 1 . BRYDEN, J. 1989. Deadly Allies, Canada’s Secret War. Toronto. McClelland & Stewart, Inc. 82. SANDERS, M., LT. COL.1945. Report on Scientific Intelligence Survey in Japan. GHQ. AFPAC. Volume 5. September and October 1945, Section 3. Record Group 330. The National Archives. 83. HILL.E. V. 1947. Letter to A.C. Waitt. 12 December 1947. Record Group 33 1 . The National Archives. 84. Interview with Mr. Norman Covert, USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, 2 Apd1990. 85. OKIE,S. 1990. Nazi medical experiments called a scientific fraud. Washw o n Post. May 22: 19. 86. ANON.1990. The Errors of Nazi Science. [TheEditorial Notebook]. New York Times. May 27: E13. 87. WILKERSON, I. 1989. Nazi scientists and e h c s today. New York Times. May 21: Y17. 88. FLOWEREE, C. 1992. The Biological Weapons Convention and the individual researcher. AM. N.Y. Acad. Sci. T h s volume. 89. BLAKESLEE, S. 1988. Panel of scientists fears a biological arms race. New York Times. January 18: A1 1 . 90. CARUS, W.S. 1989. History of Proliferation in the Mideast. [Week In Review] New York Times. January 8: 2. 91. COLE,L. 1988. The Army’s Germ Warfare against Civilians. New York Times. November 29: A19. 92. LICHTBLAU, E. 1988. 500 scientists spurn work on biological arms. Los Angeles Times. July 28: A1,21. 93. GORDON, M. 1989. U.S. Seeks Curbs on Biological Weapons. New York Times. July 27: A3. 94. CUSHMAN, J.H., JR.1988. Peds Seen in Pentagon’s Biological Research. New York Times. May 12: A9.


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95. HEALY, M. 1988. Germ Research Risk Discounted by Army. Los Angeles Times. May 13: 113. 96. BRODER,J. 1988. Plan for Germ Warfare Facility Defended. Los Angeles Times. May 4: 116. 97. ANON.1989. Pentagon Money Stirs Germ Warfare Accusations. New York Times. March 19: A17. 98. See contributions by D. Hwrsoll and J . Dalrymple in t h ~volume s for descriptions of the U.S. Biologcal Defense Research Program. 99. ENCLEBERC, S. & GORDON, M. 1989. Germans accused of helping Libya to build nerve gas plant. New York Times. January 1: A1,4. 100. GEE,J . 1991. Confessions of an on-site inspector. Pacific Research 4(4):3-9. 101. Ross, M. 1992. US concern on Iraqi arms told. Los Angeles Times. January 16: A4.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS QUESTION: Did biologcal warfare experiments occasionally backfire on those people who worked on developing biological warfare? HARRIS: I can only speak about the Japanese experience, but I can cite illustrations that will perhaps address the question. Laboratory accidents did occur, and researchers were lulled. The Nomonhan incident, which was a slurmish along the Soviet Manchurian Mongolian border in 1939, backfired on the Japanese. The Chinese material that I examined in archives and in Harbin suggests that at least 1,600 or more Japanese soldiers were lulled as a result of some of these experiments. In terms of field tests, the most infamous were those in 1941 in Ning Bo, a small community south of Hangzhou. For months the Japanese engaged in all lunds of biologically hostile acts: aerial spraying, dissemination of bacteria by such methods as dropping and scattering cow’s “dumplings,” giving biologically tainted chocolates to children, and dumping bodies in wells. It was very successful, and the Chinese suffered enormous casualties. From 194 1 to 1943 plague recurred, although it has not appeared in Ning Bo in modem times. I also interviewed some scholars in Beijing who had served in the Red Army at Harbin; as late as 1949 they were barred from going into the Ning Bo area because it was still so biologically toxic that no one could live there. There is evidence that plague broke out in and around Harbin in 1946, 1947, and 1949 and that there were at least 30,000 casualties in those three plagues. QUESTION: Did the United States show interest in the Japanese scientists in the postwar period? HARRIS: Yes, but this interest was covert. The second half of my book deals with the cover-up, which is the only way you can really define it. Shi-

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ro Ishii went into hiding right after the war, and some of his friends reported that he died. In fact, they even held a mock funeral for him complete with brass band. But he surfaced in early 1946; he was interviewed by Fort Detrick scientists begnning with Lt. Col. A. Thompson, a veterinarian, who was sent to Japan and who spent over a month interviewing him and other Japanese biologcal warfare scientists. But they were just talking,tantalizing the Americans with little tidbits in an attempt to negotiate a deal to save their skins. The Thompson report, which many of you have probably read, was important enough to get other Fort Detrick scientists interested, so others were sent over in late 1946 and in 1947 to literally negotiate with Ishii and his underlings for the data they had generated4ata that they had initially claimed to have destroyed or lost. They then claimed that they could reconstruct certain thmgs from “memory,”and they kept dribbling bits of information to the American investigators over about an 18-month period, until they finally decided to strike a deal. At that point, they suddenly evinced willingness to give a great deal of information-suddenly they “found” 8,000 tissue slides and all sorts of reports. In fact, the patholopts apologized that while they had done at least 1,000 autopsies, most were incompletely recorded, so that they could only turn over 400 complete records to the Americans. The final arrangement was very simply that any information the Japanese divulged to American investigators would be placed in “intelligence channels” rather than turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal. The agreement stated very clearly that by turnlng data over to intelligence channels, the United States scientists were in effect guaranteeing the Japanese immunity from prosecution. And on top of that, the Japanese pulled a fast one in that they did not gve us all the material they had; they gave us what they wanted to gve. MARC LAPPE:I will mention one ethical footnote, which is the issue of whether or not information that is generated in flagrantly unethical experimentation should be permitted to be used by researchers today. Although that was not a question raised with the Japanesedata, it was raised about the German concentration camp data. QUESTION: Who in Japan knew of the biologcal warfare human experiments conducted in Manchuria and in China? HARRIS: T h s is a very important question. Almost every major Japanese university contributed either scientists or participated in research that contributed to the study of biologcal warfare during the period that I am concerned with, approximately 1930 to 1945. And that includes the most prestigious institutions in Japan such as the Tokyo Imperial University and the Kyoto Imperial University. Various scientific organizations were also aware of the nature of the research. ktano Masaji, whom I have mentioned, published dozens of papers based on human experimentation.


51

He and other biological warfare scientists used code words in their papers that everyone understood. He would refer to humans in his papers as monkeys. He would refer to the animals by their appropriate genus, but only when dealing with animal research. As soon as he used the phrase “monkey,” everyone was clued in that he was referring to human experimentation. fitano’s findings were published in the most prestigous Japanese scientific journals. QUESTION: How useful has the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)been to your research? And who was ultimately responsible for the deal struck with the Japanese scientists? Was it General Douglas MacArthur? HARRIS: In reference to your first question, all of us know that the FOIA is only as good as the intentions of the person implementing it. So, my success with the FOIA has been uneven. To answer your second question, I am aware that in previous studies-John Powell’s for example, and the more recent and more controversial study by two British journalists, Peter Williams and David Wallace-the responsibility has been ascribed to MacArthur. I find MacArthur’s villainy, so to speak, inconceivable, and I think I have adequately documented in my book that the decision to grant immunity was made at least on the level of the Joint Chefs of Staff. This is clear from the cables that kept going back and forth between Washngton and Tokyo. Surprisingly, in 1977 the Army Chief Archivist denied that there was any Washington involvement at all, a mind-boggling denial in view of the fact that it was quite obvious that Washington called the shots in the cables going from Washington to Tokyo. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were telling MacArthur what to do. That doesn’t mean that he wasn’t supportive-he was indeed-but the decisions were made at least at the level of the Joint Chiefs, and I suspect that civilian authorities were involved as well, although I cannot prove it. QUESTION: Dr. Harris, do you believe that the Americans used biologxal warfare during the Korean War? I would like to make two quick points. Because I got out of HARRIS: China rather hastily in June of 1989 I didn’t have a chance to retrieve all of my work. I am going back soon, though, now that the dust has settled. When I was there, I did speak to a number of Chinese experts who taunted me about our use of biological warfare in Korea, claiming they had all lunds of documentation as to its use. They sent me some of their material, which from their perspective constituted documentation but in fact was only old newspaper clippings, the same rehash of everything that had been published in the 1950s. S o until I have a chance to study again at the Beijing archives I cannot say positively whether anything is there. On the other hand, I myself have been disturbed about one small point: When the charges against the Japanese first surfaced, MacArthur’s office in Tokyo issued a statement denying any knowledge of Japanese biological warfare

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work. We know that to be untrue. We had already long since made our deal with the Japanese. QUESTION:Did the issue of American use of Japanesebiological warfare experts in Korea ever come up in judicial proceedings?Were any Japanese scientists prosecuted? HARRIS: Yes, at the show trial in Kbabarovsk, U.S.S.R. But that is another story. We did take some of that seriously and compared some of the statements made by the defendants at that time with what we have. But in 1950 or 1951, when the first charges surfaced, MacArthur’s office in Tokyo issued a statement denying any knowledge of any Japanese biological warfare work in the past therefore making it impossible for us to have utilized their research in Korea. But that does not make sense.

Biological warfare, bioterrorism, and biocrime.

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Ethics and research on adolescents.

Colloquia on radiation, arms race, chemical and biological warfare.

National Human Research Ethics: A Preliminary Comparative Case Study of Germany, Great Britain, Romania, and Sweden.

The warrior, military ethics and contemporary warfare: Achilles goes symmetrical.

The Impact of a Research Ethics Training Program: Romania as a Case Study.

History of biological warfare: catapults to capsomeres.

Biological warfare: role of scientific societies.

Research ethics and case studies in psychology: a commentary on Taus v. Loftus.

Biological Warfare in the 17th Century.

Biological warfare. Gruinard Island handed back.

Case study in psychobiographical ethics.

Ethics and law in research with human biological samples: a new approach.

Microbiology of root surface caries in humans.

Research ethics.

Research ethics and permission.

Biodefense: trends and challenges in combating biological warfare agents.

Putting patients on research ethics committees.

Ethics of sponsored research.

Animal ethics committee guidelines and shark research : comment on "ethics of species research and preservation" by Rob Irvine.

Molecular microbiology in antibacterial research.

Randomization, ethics and clinical research.

Research ethics and medical education.