AP, Feb 27, 2006
...."At the turn of the 20th century, man started to understand that insects are the vector of disease," said Lockwood. "The Japanese, French, Germans, English and the United States all had entomological disease programs active during the golden years of 1930 to 1970."
Of particular note was the Japanese program during World War II, labeled Unit 731. This unit produced 50 million plague-infested fleas a month and used them on the Chinese. They also dropped cholera-coated flies, dubbed "maggot bombs," which killed as many people in China as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs in Japan combined.
This is a major untold story, but Lockwood posits that is because the United States cut a deal with the Japanese unit not to try them as war criminals if they would share their information on insect weapons. The U.S. eventually settled on the use of yellow fever mosquitoes during the Cold War, and even dropped uninfected mosquitoes on its own citizens in parts of Georgia to test the frequency of bites....more....
