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More than 60 years after the end of the Second World War, the name "Unit 731" still has the power to generate shock, revulsion and denial in Japan. The Imperial Japanese Army's notorious medical research team carried out secret human experiments regarded as some of the worst war crimes in history. Its scientists subjected more than 10,000 people per year to grotesque Josef Mengele-style torture in the name of science, including captured Russian soldiers and downed American aircrews.The experiments included hanging people upside down until they choked, burying them alive, injecting air into their veins and placing them in high-pressure...

Six veterans who claim they were unwittingly exposed to dangerous chemicals and germs during government-sponsored Cold War experiments have sued the CIA, Department of Defense and other agencies. The vets volunteered for military experiments they say were part of a program started in the 1950s to test nerve agents, biological weapons and mind-control techniques. They allege in their federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Francisco that they are in poor health today because of the experiments. They are demanding health care and a court ruling that the program was illegal.

Evolution accounts for a lot of our strange ideas about finances. Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000? Assume for the moment that prices of goods and services will stay the same. Surprisingly -- stunningly, in fact -- research shows that the majority of people select the first option; they would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could otherwise have. How irrational is that? This result is one among thousands of...

A federal court judge will review the case of a Montreal woman unwittingly subjected to CIA brainwashing experiments, refusing a federal government application to dismiss her lawsuit. Janine Huard is seeking approval from the court for a class action lawsuit on behalf of potentially hundreds of patients who were subjected to the Cold War-era experiments funded jointly by the U.S. spy agency and the Canadian government. "First off, I note that the plaintiff showed courage and determination in tackling the United States government and the CIA," Judge Luc Martineau wrote in a judgement released this week. Huard, 79, was a...

The FDA is presently considering guidelines that would allow scientists to conduct "emergency research" on patients without any informed consent. PFLC is launching a direct challenge to these proposed regulations which would allow Nazi-like experimentation on human beings. Do you remember from history what the Nazi party and Joseph Mengele did to human subjects during WWII? These reprobates conducted dangerous medical experiments on innocent people without consent. Many people died as a result of the Nazis' human experiments and many others suffered a lifetime of post-experimental trauma and injury. This is not to mention the deprivation of basic human dignity...

Note: The following commentary contains graphic descriptions of human-rights abuses that may not be suitable for some readers. The story was reminiscent of the horrors of Auschwitz. Kwon Hyuk, who recently defected from North Korea, was telling a British journalist what it was like to work at Camp 22, North’s Korea’s infamous concentration camp. As Hyuk recalled, “I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.” Above the glass chamber, scientists...

IMPERIAL JAPANESE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: Witness Account "C" Test How Long a Human Being Could Survive With Just Water and Biscuits Imperial Japanese Medical Orderly Ishibashi witnessed: (Translation) "I saw the malnutrition experiments. They were conducted by the project team under the technician Yoshimura. He was a civilian project team under the technician Yoshimura. He was a civilian member of Unit 731. The purpose of the experiments, I believe, was to find out how long a human being could survive just with water and biscuits. Two individuals were used for this experiment. They continuously circled a prescribed course within...

IN HARM'S WAY ALBANY, NY - Carl M. Steubing, a decorated Battle of the Bulge veteran whose experience of war made him a pacifist but also instilled in him a zest for living life at full tilt, took his diagnosis of gastroesophageal cancer in 2001 as a challenge. With a thatch of white hair and a rich baritone voice, Mr. Steubing, at 78, was not ready to succumb to illness. A retired music educator and wedding photographer, he remained active as a church choir director, expert cook, painter, golfer and fisherman. He was married to a woman 24 years his...

<p>A former autopsy assistant allegedly stockpiled 157 pounds of human remains, including two well-preserved heads, because he was curious and wanted to conduct his own research in anatomy, police said Saturday.</p> <p>David Lawrence Beale was arrested Friday after a tip led police to a shed near his home and a storage locker he rented in this quiet college town about 75 miles northeast of San Francisco, Lt. Jim Harritt said.</p>

Albuquerque lab experiments will study nuclear explosions 12/28/2002 Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE - Sandia National Laboratories may soon be in the business of simulating nuclear explosions using small amounts of electrically charged plutonium. The experiments, which could start next summer, would mark the first time the lab uses the radioactive lead-like metal in its massive nuclear fusion machines. Sandia's gymnasium-sized "Z" and Saturn machines are normally used to create tiny but intense bursts of radiation for fusion research. The Department of Energy wants to use the machines to fire a small piece of metal against a plutonium target. Instruments would...

'Millions exposed' in 1960s experiments Radioactive gas was flung from Harwell During the early 1960s millions of people were exposed to clouds of radioactive xenon gas from the Harwell Nuclear Research Establishment, the BBC has discovered. The gas was sprayed from the top of an incinerator stack at the Oxfordshire facility. Over four lunchtimes in July 1961, men in white body suits released large clouds of the gas over English towns and villages to help estimate what effect a biological or chemical warfare attack would have on Britain. Until now nobody outside of a select few ever knew what they...

Lawmakers want information on use of nerve gas in '60s * By David Goldstein, The Kansas City Star * WASHINGTON - Two members of Congress intend to call for an investigation into the secret testing of nerve gas and chemical and biological agents on U.S. servicemen in the 1960s. *  Rep. Mike Thompson of California and Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, both Democrats, plan to introduce legislation in their respective chambers next week, urging that the Pentagon reveal more information about the tests, known as Project SHAD. *   "If it's classified, we can deal with classified material," said Nelson,...

Posted on Sun, Apr. 21, 2002 BY JENNIFER BABSON jbabson@herald.com BOCA CHICA KEY - They worry about allergies and immune system difficulties and ailments yet to be diagnosed. A few bolted for points north; others shuttered windows and stayed inside. Word that the U.S. Army was conducting biological and chemical detection tests off Key West last week -- using a crop duster to spray what it says are benign substances over a small swath of the Gulf -- set alarm bells ringing for some on this island chain. ''Monday I had my house closed up all day and the air...

Receive FREE updates by email: The Truth About North KoreaBy Reed Irvine and Cliff KincaidApril 2, 2002 A recent Gallup Poll found that while Americans generally have a negative opinion of North Korea, these attitudes were less negative than views of Iran and Iraq – the other two "axis of evil" countries identified by President Bush in his State of the Union Address. Gallup said that, to some degree, this was because "Americans know less about North Korea than the other two countries." Dr. Norbert Vollertsen is trying to change that. He is the German doctor who spent 18...