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Bombay blood scandal raises question of safety
Japanese war-time experiments
come
to
light
tests" in 1940: a plague epidemic in Manchuria in that year which, Chinese records say, claimed the lives of several a hundred victims, was, he says, the first of the Shokan, Tokyo publishing house, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. such trials. According to Masataka Mori, a The experiments, carried out at Sonidsimilar "test" took place in Congshan vilYougi and Xiling Glo Meng in Innerlage, near Yivu City in September, 1942; Mongolia in January and February, 1941,386 villagers died. 2 months later, a seem to have been in preparation for a Japanese biological warfare team arrived, possible war against the Soviet Union. 56 burned the village and took survivors to Japanese army surgeons took part. The Linshan temple 3 km away for vivisection "test material" consisted of 8 Chinese experiments. Retired Japanese army offiprisoners of war (POW). : cer, Mustsuo Inuoe, who worked at unit The experiments dealt mainly with 8604 in Guangzho from February, 1943, frostbite and other effects of low temperato July, 1945, says his team was culturing tures. There was also an experiment on fleas as vectors of the plague bacillus, for the use of unmatched blood in emergency deployment, he was informed, against US transfusions, the 38-year-old injured POW troops if the latter landed in China. recipient being executed 12 h later by a According to Prof Yoshiaki Yashimi of shot in the head. The necropsy, the report Chuo University, Japan, other targets included the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, concluded, showed no significant illeffects from the transfusion. : Burma, and Australia. Much of this new evidence was presentJapanese specialists, Kyodo noted, say: that such detailed reports of experiments ed at a Sino-Japanese seminar in Harbin earlier this month. Before this meeting, a on live POWs are "quite rare". Evidence for experiments on Chinese civilians, howJapanese delegation led by Mori visited ever, has been coming to light for some . Congshang village and Linshan temple. time. A network of bacteriological warfare Another group visited the site of unit 731. units is known to have existed mainly in Although these visits were made in the China (officially designated the "Epidemic name of repentance and reconciliation, Prevention and Water Supply Unit"), and they provoked some dispute. The visiting throughout south-eastern Asia. According Japanese spoke with shame of "at least to Prof Tatao Matsumura of the social 3000" people killed in experiments at unit history department of Keio University in 7 31. The true figure, the Chinese say, was Tokyo, unit 731 in Harbin, the largest of a : over 10 000. network of biological warfare units (officially designated Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply), was carrying out "field- Vera Rich A confidential wartime report on Japanese medical experiments on Chinese prisoners of war was published last week by Gendai
Bombay blood scandal raises question of safety Contaminated blood supply and alleged pilferage at the reputed Indian Red Cross Society Blood Bank in Bombay have highlighted the issue of blood safety in India. Last month, there were media reports based on leaked documents that the bank, which has since lost its licence, supplied at least 15 bags of blood contaminated with HIV or hepatitis B virus to several leading Bombay hospitals between February, 1992, and July, 1994. Next came documented evidence that a few hundred bags of blood missing in the official records of
December, 1992, were
somehow
summary reports. The authorities had
deputy director, "Maryland, Baltimore in particular, will benefit also from so-called Third World solutions, in maternal and
566
: : : : : : : : : : :
: : : : : :
: : :
ear-
lier received formal complaints that bank staff would turn down offers of blood from patients’ relatives but would instead supply the patient with blood obtained through intermediaries at a premium. Dr Avinash Shejale, dismissed from his : post as medical director of the bank as soon as the news broke although he joined it only in October, 1994, says that when he alerted the authorities to how staff were selling the pilfered blood to augment their incomes, he received anonymous telephone threats. Another senior official says that blood meant to be discarded could also have been stolen for sale. : Within the blood bank, tests on 12 random blood samples of thalassaemic patients showed that eight had tested HIV positive. In another incident, 45 of the 64 children with thalassaemia receiving regular blood transfusions at BJ Wadia Hospital tested HIV positive, raising further questions of safety. countries Those aware of the blood banking situation are not surprised. "Hardly much has child health, in problems like teenage changed since the Fergusson report", says pregnancies and high infant-mortality H D Shourie, director of Common Cause, rates and so on". a consumer rights organisation, referring The ICO is also exploring the possibilito the 1990 health ministry commissioned ties, he said, of working with the private confidential study. On the basis of this sector in Maryland to look especially at scathing report on the blood banking syshow small enterprises can build capacity tem, Shourie had filed a public interest in African countries to produce goods writ petition in the Supreme Court to such as soap, water, and sanitation prodforce changes. Hearings have been taking ucts and insecticides. Negotiations will place for the past 3 years. soon be held with Zambia. Martin said Although the National AIDS Control the emphasis on hygiene constituted an Organisation claims that it has established innovation in that over the past decade : 150 blood-testing centres, almost nothing WHO’s efforts have been forced in the has been done to promote voluntary direction of medicalism and technology. blood donation, says Shourie. The Indian Another of WHO’s aims is to build up a Health Organisation, a non-governmental solidarity between rich and developing organisation taking up Shejale’s case and countries-to get away from the charitaother issues raised by the scandal, says ble top-down relation between such that more than half of India’s blood supnations. ply is not screened for HIV (as required Asked whether the Maryland agreeby law), while 75% of the World Bank’s ment was not also a stratagem for circum$84-5 million loan to combat AIDS has venting the US Administration’s present remained unspent in past 3 years. dissatisfaction with WHO, Martin gave no direct reply.
Maryland learns from developing "Unprecedented" is how the signatories acclaim the 2-year agreement concluded on Aug 15 between WHO’s Division of Intensified Cooperation (IWO) and the US state of Maryland under which they "will share expertise and experience to improve the health of the citizens of the world’s poorest nations.With its Johns Hopkins and state universities, Maryland is no newcomer to such endeavours. It has already provided two experts for ICO teams for Guyana and for Sierra Leone. what it will get in return from WHO is help with addressing poverty-related health problems. The incentive for the agreement emerged from a Baltimore conference in June last year organised by the US Agency for International Development, which asserted then that "America has done a better job in some instances combatting difficult social problems abroad than we have done in our back yard". According to Dr John Martin, ICO
to September, 1994, "adjusted" in the monthly
Alan
McGregor
Sanjay Kumar
come
to
light
tests" in 1940: a plague epidemic in Manchuria in that year which, Chinese records say, claimed the lives of several a hundred victims, was, he says, the first of the Shokan, Tokyo publishing house, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. such trials. According to Masataka Mori, a The experiments, carried out at Sonidsimilar "test" took place in Congshan vilYougi and Xiling Glo Meng in Innerlage, near Yivu City in September, 1942; Mongolia in January and February, 1941,386 villagers died. 2 months later, a seem to have been in preparation for a Japanese biological warfare team arrived, possible war against the Soviet Union. 56 burned the village and took survivors to Japanese army surgeons took part. The Linshan temple 3 km away for vivisection "test material" consisted of 8 Chinese experiments. Retired Japanese army offiprisoners of war (POW). : cer, Mustsuo Inuoe, who worked at unit The experiments dealt mainly with 8604 in Guangzho from February, 1943, frostbite and other effects of low temperato July, 1945, says his team was culturing tures. There was also an experiment on fleas as vectors of the plague bacillus, for the use of unmatched blood in emergency deployment, he was informed, against US transfusions, the 38-year-old injured POW troops if the latter landed in China. recipient being executed 12 h later by a According to Prof Yoshiaki Yashimi of shot in the head. The necropsy, the report Chuo University, Japan, other targets included the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, concluded, showed no significant illeffects from the transfusion. : Burma, and Australia. Much of this new evidence was presentJapanese specialists, Kyodo noted, say: that such detailed reports of experiments ed at a Sino-Japanese seminar in Harbin earlier this month. Before this meeting, a on live POWs are "quite rare". Evidence for experiments on Chinese civilians, howJapanese delegation led by Mori visited ever, has been coming to light for some . Congshang village and Linshan temple. time. A network of bacteriological warfare Another group visited the site of unit 731. units is known to have existed mainly in Although these visits were made in the China (officially designated the "Epidemic name of repentance and reconciliation, Prevention and Water Supply Unit"), and they provoked some dispute. The visiting throughout south-eastern Asia. According Japanese spoke with shame of "at least to Prof Tatao Matsumura of the social 3000" people killed in experiments at unit history department of Keio University in 7 31. The true figure, the Chinese say, was Tokyo, unit 731 in Harbin, the largest of a : over 10 000. network of biological warfare units (officially designated Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply), was carrying out "field- Vera Rich A confidential wartime report on Japanese medical experiments on Chinese prisoners of war was published last week by Gendai
Bombay blood scandal raises question of safety Contaminated blood supply and alleged pilferage at the reputed Indian Red Cross Society Blood Bank in Bombay have highlighted the issue of blood safety in India. Last month, there were media reports based on leaked documents that the bank, which has since lost its licence, supplied at least 15 bags of blood contaminated with HIV or hepatitis B virus to several leading Bombay hospitals between February, 1992, and July, 1994. Next came documented evidence that a few hundred bags of blood missing in the official records of
December, 1992, were
somehow
summary reports. The authorities had
deputy director, "Maryland, Baltimore in particular, will benefit also from so-called Third World solutions, in maternal and
566
: : : : : : : : : : :
: : : : : :
: : :
ear-
lier received formal complaints that bank staff would turn down offers of blood from patients’ relatives but would instead supply the patient with blood obtained through intermediaries at a premium. Dr Avinash Shejale, dismissed from his : post as medical director of the bank as soon as the news broke although he joined it only in October, 1994, says that when he alerted the authorities to how staff were selling the pilfered blood to augment their incomes, he received anonymous telephone threats. Another senior official says that blood meant to be discarded could also have been stolen for sale. : Within the blood bank, tests on 12 random blood samples of thalassaemic patients showed that eight had tested HIV positive. In another incident, 45 of the 64 children with thalassaemia receiving regular blood transfusions at BJ Wadia Hospital tested HIV positive, raising further questions of safety. countries Those aware of the blood banking situation are not surprised. "Hardly much has child health, in problems like teenage changed since the Fergusson report", says pregnancies and high infant-mortality H D Shourie, director of Common Cause, rates and so on". a consumer rights organisation, referring The ICO is also exploring the possibilito the 1990 health ministry commissioned ties, he said, of working with the private confidential study. On the basis of this sector in Maryland to look especially at scathing report on the blood banking syshow small enterprises can build capacity tem, Shourie had filed a public interest in African countries to produce goods writ petition in the Supreme Court to such as soap, water, and sanitation prodforce changes. Hearings have been taking ucts and insecticides. Negotiations will place for the past 3 years. soon be held with Zambia. Martin said Although the National AIDS Control the emphasis on hygiene constituted an Organisation claims that it has established innovation in that over the past decade : 150 blood-testing centres, almost nothing WHO’s efforts have been forced in the has been done to promote voluntary direction of medicalism and technology. blood donation, says Shourie. The Indian Another of WHO’s aims is to build up a Health Organisation, a non-governmental solidarity between rich and developing organisation taking up Shejale’s case and countries-to get away from the charitaother issues raised by the scandal, says ble top-down relation between such that more than half of India’s blood supnations. ply is not screened for HIV (as required Asked whether the Maryland agreeby law), while 75% of the World Bank’s ment was not also a stratagem for circum$84-5 million loan to combat AIDS has venting the US Administration’s present remained unspent in past 3 years. dissatisfaction with WHO, Martin gave no direct reply.
Maryland learns from developing "Unprecedented" is how the signatories acclaim the 2-year agreement concluded on Aug 15 between WHO’s Division of Intensified Cooperation (IWO) and the US state of Maryland under which they "will share expertise and experience to improve the health of the citizens of the world’s poorest nations.With its Johns Hopkins and state universities, Maryland is no newcomer to such endeavours. It has already provided two experts for ICO teams for Guyana and for Sierra Leone. what it will get in return from WHO is help with addressing poverty-related health problems. The incentive for the agreement emerged from a Baltimore conference in June last year organised by the US Agency for International Development, which asserted then that "America has done a better job in some instances combatting difficult social problems abroad than we have done in our back yard". According to Dr John Martin, ICO
to September, 1994, "adjusted" in the monthly
Alan
McGregor
Sanjay Kumar