Unit 731 Japanese Biological Warfare Program WWII

Описание: Japan conducted biological weapons research from approximately 1932 until the end of World War II. The center of the Japanese biowarfare program was known as Unit 731 and was located in Manchuria. The Japanese program consisted of more than 150 buildings in 5 satellite camps, and a staff of more than 3000 scientists. Organisms and diseases of interest to the Japanese program were B. anthracis, Neisseria meningitidis, Vibrio cholerae, Shigella spp, and Yersiniapestis/ More than 10,000 prisoners are believed to have died as a result of experimental infection during the Japanese program between 1932 and 1945. At least 3000 of these victims were prisoners of war, including Korean, Chinese, Mongolian, Soviet, American, British, and Australian soldiers. Many of these prisoners died as a direct effect of experimental inoculation of agents causing gas gangrene, anthrax, meningococcal infection, cholera, dysentery, or plague. In addition, experiments with terodotoxin (an extremely poisonous fungal toxin) were conducted. In later years, Japanese officials considered these experiments as most regrettable from the view point of humanity. In addition to the experiments conducted on prisoners in the camps of Unit 731, the Japanese military developed plague as a biological weapon by allowing laboratory fleas to feed on plague infected rats. On several occasions, the fleas were released from aircraft over Chinese cities to initiate plague epidemics. However, the Japanese had not adequately prepared, trained, or equipped their own military personnel for the hazards of biological weapons. An attack in 1941 reportedly led to approximately 10,000 casualties due to biological weapons. During this incident 1700 deaths were reported among Japanese troops. Thus, field trials were terminated in 1942. This is clipped from the 2000 video Biological Warfare and Terrorism: The Military and Public Health Response produced by the Department of the Army and the Food and Drug Administration. The entire video has been digitized by the nonprofit Public.Resource.Org (http://public.resource.org/index.html ) in a cooperative agreement with the National Technical Information (http://public.resource.org/ntis.gov/i... ) and is available at the Internet Archive at www.archive.com .