REPORT I US backed Japan's germ tests on mentally sick : from PETER McGILL in Tokyo EXPERIMENTS on human Also on the payroll were Dr guinea pigs by members of Kiyoshi Asanuma of the the Japanese germ warfare Research Institute for Natural unit continued in Japan Resources, an entomologist after the war with the help who had studied insect carriers of secret funding from the of contagious diseases as a American Government, an member of 731, and Dr Observer investigation has Masami Kitaoka and Dr Kaoru confirmed. Okutu, both then at the The ostensible purpose of the National Institute of Health work was to develop vaccines and both former 731 members. to fight disease. To test treatments for scrub Prisoners, babies and mental typhus, the team instructed patients were all used in researchers to infect patients in experiments in which the a mental hospital at Niigata, on former members of Japan's the west •coast of Japan. germ warfare unit in Man- Between 1953 and 1956 infecchuria, Unit 731, were tious agents of scrub typhus, involved.