A commentary on 'Unit 731: Ignored History and Lost Lessons in Medical Education'

It is of crucial importance to the field of medical ethics that the story of the Japanese occupying army’s ‘Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department’, more commonly known as Unit 731, not be ignored or forgotten. That is why Liu Cheuk Nam has performed a huge service to history and ethics in recounting the horror perpetrated on Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Russian and Allied POWs between 1933 to the end of World War II.

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Three key lessons emerge from this history.

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First, it is not simply kooks and third-rate scientists who were involved in the 20 th century in carrying out brutal, barbaric experiments on hapless prisoners and detainees. Top flight German scientists conducted deadly, disabling and disfiguring war-related research in Nazi concentration camps very similar to the work done by Lt. General Ishii Shiro, the highly trained and competent immunologist and human vivisector, in Harbin and Beiyinhe. Scientific expertise and achievement are no guarantee against a moral conscience capable of conducting vicious lethal human research.

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Second, the combination of war and racism is especially fertile ground for supporting unspeakable human experiments. If you can invoke national security and dragoon people from ethnic groups you despise into your cause almost anything can be justified even in the best scientific minds.

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And lastly, governments will, especially when they see themselves threatened, access and utilize data no matter how horrendous its acquisition if they see it permitting an advantage against enemies and threats. The USA did it with Ishii and also with German scientists’ findings who had committed war crimes as did the UK, Russia, and other states after WWII ended.

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The horror of war can lead to brutality against one’s enemies on the battlefield or in a research lab. We need to both teach this truth and be vigilant against its seductive power.