In Japan, newly released archives reveal the scale of human experimentation between 1938 and 1945
Service records of officers and soldiers before Japan's defeat in 1945, made public on May 15 by the country's National Archives, revealed that some were assigned to secret units in China: one in Nanjing, identified as Unit 1,644, and another in Guangzhou, numbered 8,604. The military personnel in these units reportedly conducted bacteriological experiments on human subjects.
Until now only Unit 731, located near Harbin – now in China's Heilongjiang province and then the capital of Manchukuo, a puppet state controlled by Tokyo – was known for carrying out such activities from 1938 until the end of World War II.
"The service records confirm the existence in China of a network of units conducting these experiments and coordinating their activities," explained Katsuo Nishiyama, emeritus professor at Shiga University of Medical Science and a specialist in Japan's imperial-era biological weapons programs.
Units 1,644 and 8,604 − with the one in Nanjing being the largest − were overseen, like Unit 731, by the Tokyo-based Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department. Their primary activity reportedly involved experimenting on humans to enable Japan to develop biological weapons, in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical and biological weapons.
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AFP
3 hours ago
- AFP
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Euronews
3 hours ago
- Euronews
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Euronews
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- Euronews
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Other European hospitals are also phasing out piped-in methods of delivering laughing gas, including those in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In the UK, for example, two hospitals replaced their large centralised nitrous oxide containers with small portable cylinders that could be wheeled into the operating room. This led to a 55 per cent reduction in monthly nitrous oxide emissions, from 333 tonnes to 150 tonnes, according to the National Health Service (NHS) in England. 'It's not about restricting clinical use, it's about creating a less wasteful system,' said Dr Cliff Shelton, a UK-based anaesthetist, professor, and co-chair of the safety, standards, and environmental sustainability committee at the Association of Anaesthetists, a professional group focused on the UK and Ireland. Last year, the group said UK and Irish hospitals should decommission their nitrous oxide pipelines 'as soon as possible,' ideally by 2027. In recent years, the health trust in Manchester, where Shelton works, has switched to a mobile-canister approach for nitrous oxide that he said has reduced the organisation's overall carbon footprint by about three per cent to five per cent. 'We've made it cheaper and greener, and people are still getting the same [anaesthetic] care they always got,' he told Euronews Health. These efforts are part of a broader reckoning among medical workers about how their field is exacerbating climate change, which is linked to a host of health issues, such as asthma, stroke, and mosquito-borne diseases. Globally, the health sector causes 4.4 per cent of net emissions, with the European Union contributing 248 million metric tons of carbon dioxide – behind only the United States and China, according to a 2019 report from the advocacy group Health Care Without Harm. When used as anaesthesia, laughing gas adds an additional one per cent to the EU health sector's carbon footprint, the group found. Other commonly used anaesthetic gases, such as sevoflurane, isoflurane, and desflurane, also contribute. But the vast majority of the health sector's carbon emissions are related to its supply chain – the production, transport, use, and disposal of medicines, medical kits, and other resources. That means minimising waste of nitrous oxide and other gas-based anaesthetics won't be enough for hospitals to offset their climate impact. Even so, sustainability-minded doctors believe it is a good start. 'When we looked into this, we found we were buying 100 times more nitrous oxide than we were actually using,' Shelton said. 'It's a moral imperative, really, to get on top of that [degree of waste],' he added. Organ transplantation, which is often the only way to save a life, is directly dependent on donors. But their sometimes unreliable availability often leads to patients dying before receiving a donated organ. There are two types of organ donations: from a living donor and cadaveric transplants. While options for a living donor are generally restricted to just the kidney and liver, in Kazakhstan it tends to save more lives than a posthumous donation. "Around the world, 80-90% of donations are posthumous, but the same cannot be said about Kazakhstan and the countries in Central Asia. In our country, 80-90% of donors are living relatives of the patients," said Aidar Sitkazinov, Director of the Republican Centre for Coordination of Transplantation and High-Tech Services in Kazakhstan. According to him, the reason many people refuse to donate their organs after death is a lack of trust in the healthcare system. The belief that corruption is everywhere makes them fear that donated organs will be misused or illegally sold, or that doctors will not treat the patients to get to their organs. Sitkazinov notes that selling organs is punishable by law in Kazakhstan. At the same time, dozens of people and several organisations are involved in the procedure for organ transplantation, and hospitals do not benefit monetarily or otherwise if a patient becomes a donor after death. Still, he understands that scandals surrounding organ transplantation often deter people from signing the donation form. Last year alone, there were 15 cases where people attempted to sell donated organs. Religion also plays a role. Many believe Islam or Orthodox Christianity - the two main religions in Central Asia - do not allow posthumous donation. Religious authorities in Kazakhstan all support posthumous donation as a charitable act, but that still has not swayed many people. The religious question is not unique to Kazakhstan or Central Asia. Studies have shown that a reluctance to donate organs after death is a long-standing trend in Islamic countries where living donations prevail. In contrast, in Europe organ donation after death is an established practice, covering up to 50% of the need for organs. Unlike in other parts of the world, Europe also uses organs of donors who died due to heart failure. As of May 2025, 4,226 people in Kazakhstan are on the waiting list for some kind of organ donation, 128 of whom are children. Of the total number of patients, 3,828 are waiting for a kidney, but in the worst case scenario that a donor is not found, those patients also have the option of haemodialysis, which can keep them alive for between 10 and 15 years. "Not everyone who needs an organ transplant is on this list. This category has no other alternative, only an organ transplant can save their lives," highlighted the director of the transplantation coordination body. According to him, on average 300 people die because there simply are not enough organ donors. "I'll give you a simple example – in 2024, we had 86 deceased donors who were diagnosed with brain death. All relatives were approached and only 10 families gave their consent," said Sitkazinov, noting that one deceased person can save seven lives. Kazakhstan has an opt-in consent system, where each citizen has to officially agree to donate their organs after death. However, even if the person gives consent, their relatives must also agree. This system came into place in 2020, after several lawsuits from the relatives of deceased persons, who were outraged that organs were extracted without their consent. In 2024, there were 260 transplantations, of which 237 were from a living donor. "The main problem is refusal of relatives. We also have a very low expression of will. As of January 2025, with an adult population of 11 million, 115,000 people have expressed their will to opt out, and only 8,000 opted in," noted Sitkazinov. All Central Asian countries share similar problems when it comes to posthumous donation; lack of trust in the system and misconceptions about the donations themselves. Until public awareness increases and systems prove to be more transparent and secure the number of organ donations from deceased people is unlikely to grow significantly.
