Japan's germ warfare: The U.S. cover-up of a war crime

Abstract

One of the neglected stories of World War II is Japan's use of Germ Warfare against China and the Soviet Union. For years the Japanese and American governments have succeeded in suppressing this chapter in history. Japan's reason for wanting to hide its attempt to practice “public health in reverse”—a criminally irresponsible undertaking which was potentially capable of setting off wide-ranging epidemics endangering the lives of millions of people—is understandable. The American government's participation in illegally concealing evidence of these war crimes, it is now revealed, stemmed chiefly from Washington's desire to secure exclusive possession of what it considered to be “extremely valuable” military information.