Page 108 - Unit 731 Testimony

business together, establishing Japan's first blood bank in 1951. Heavy
purchases by the armed forces of the United States set the company on the
road to financial success. The blood bank was later named Midori Juji, or

"Green Cross," and it continued along its prosperous path. It is now one of
Japan's leading pharmaceutical companies, and has even moved overseas,
setting up offices in the United States.
In February 1988, U.S. medical researchers identified eighteen patients
in Japan who had become infected with the AIDS virus through

transfusions of infected blood products exported from the United States by
Green Cross. The following May, two of the infected patients brought suit
against the company (and other related ones). Dr. Yamaguchi Ken'ichiro, a
medical practitioner who lectures on Unit 731 and its effect on Japanese
medicine today, has stated in his talks his belief that the company
knowingly imported and distributed AIDS-tainted blood as part of its

program for developing an AIDS vaccine. Successful development of such
a medicine would mean astronomical profits. Government approval to
market a new substance, however, is difficult to obtain without a history of
successful use on humans.

Commenting further on connections between AIDS and biological
warfare, Dr. Yamaguchi adds his voice to the chorus of those who find it
hard to believe the orthodox explanation that the disease started with
monkeys. It is much easier, he says, to think that it was developed in Fort
Detrick as part of their ongoing biological warfare program, after which it
somehow leaked out. A researcher at Fort Detrick was said to have

remarked to the effect that, within ten years, the U.S. would have developed
a biological weapon that would be more devastating than anything to date.
Just ten years after that statement, the first AIDS case appeared. The Fort
Detrick origin, says Yamaguchi, is a much more scientifically realistic
explanation.

Postwar Careers: Plum Positions

One of the former unit members described Unit 731 in a postwar
interview as the "best paying job" anyone could have gotten at the time.
During the days when human experimentation was being carried out,

researchers were paid as civilian employees of the Imperial Japanese Army.
After the war, this lucrative tradition continued, as payments were made to
anyone who had been in any way connected with the units. No official