more on GOP Lawmakers Propose Forming Secretive Federal Agency to Spur Vaccine Development

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rod Van Meter <rdv () tera ics keio ac jp>
Date: December 4, 2005 1:34:45 AM EST
To: dave () farber net, ken kousky <kkousky () ip3-inc com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on GOP Lawmakers Propose Forming Secretive  
Federal Agency to Spur Vaccine Development
Reply-To: rdv () tera ics keio ac jp

[For IP, if you wish.]

2005-12-03 (土) の 15:28 -0500 に David Farber さんは書きま 
した:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: ken kousky <kkousky () ip3-inc com>
>  We elected not to prosecute the Japanese forces that killed
> hundreds of thousands of Chinese in bio-weapons testing and
> development in
> order to gain access to their knowledge, to share in their spoils.

Far be it for me to defend the Imperial Japanese government of the war
era, but this figure seems to be exaggerated.  The best information I
could find on the web suggests that the notorious Unit 731 killed about
3,000 people.  They did it in horrible ways, beyond imagining, the equal
of the worst by the Nazis or any creative medieval tyrant.  And the
numbers killed by the Japanese overall in the war are much larger.  But
the bio-weapons group, at least, doesn't seem to have been involved in
such numbers.

I read Sheldon Harris' _Factories of Death_ six or eight years ago.  It
is full of data, some contradictory.  I no longer recall the details,
but I remember feeling that his conclusions were not supported by the
data he presented.

It is true that the U.S. bargained for the data from these experiments.
It has recently come to light that the bargaining apparently including
purchasing the data.  One reason the numbers were not larger was that
the Japanese apparently were not very successful at creating
bio-weapons.  They tried, but apparently had trouble killing either
people or livestock with anthrax.

One place to start is Wikipedia, of course:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

                --Rod




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