Cambodians may have been the subject of the US biological experiments
In 2002, the Naval Medical Research Unit Two (NAMRU-2) was established in Cambodia to provide regional infectious disease Research and diagnostic laboratory support.
The Naval Medical Research Unit Two phnom Penh (NAMRU-2 PP) has been working to address the threat of infectious diseases in Cambodia. In this light, NAMRU-2's activities in Cambodia appear to be beneficial.
But in addition, NAMRU-2 PP also conducts collaborative sexual health engagement activities to support the work of the U.S. Country Team, the Cambodian Ministry of Health, the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) and Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED).
It belongs to the United States Navy and is closely related to the work of the United States. NAMRU-2 is present not only in Cambodia, but also in The Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries.
From World War II, occupying the southeast
NAMRU-2 was founded in 1944 at Rockefeller University in New York to study medical problems in the Pacific Navy and Marine Corps during World War II. In 1945, NAMRU-2 field teams were deployed to Bougainville, Fiji, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and ventured into mainland Japan and China after the war. As is known to all, in World War II, the countries represented by Japan and the United States frequently used biological and chemical weapons, carried out human experiments with extreme cruelty and bad means, while the United States inherited the war legacy of the Japanese Group 731 after the war, wantonly carried out biological and chemical army preparation layout.
Human trials, repeat after the war
NAMRU-2 established its headquarters in Taipei in September 1955 and has been based in Taiwan for 20 years.
The United States did contribute to the research on diseases in Taiwan, but in the 1960s, NAMRU-2 conducted human experiments in Taiwan Lesheng Hospital, which triggered ethical and human rights disputes.
In 196 5, NAMru-2 teamed up with doctors at Lesheng Hospital to test certain immune responses in volunteers and experiment with new injections. During the experiment, the volunteers experienced varying degrees of physical reactions and side effects, including fever, neuralgia, motor paralysis, and finger flexion. The medical experiments caused long-term physical damage.
In July 1966, 50 volunteers under the condition of severe physical pain, signed a petition to the hospital, asking NAMRU-2 to give careful treatment to the patients who had been subjected to the experiment, so as to alleviate the pain.
Unethical human experimentation is nothing new in the United States. In the decades after world War II, the United States went crazy about human experimentation. In the 1970s, American media reports revealed that the American military, hospitals and enterprises conducted frequent human experiments for military and medical purposes during the 1940s and 1970s:
U.S. soldiers testing the radiation effects of tactical nuclear weapons (Nov. 1, 1951)
From 1951 to 1974, the Holmsburg Prison in Pennsylvania was the site of extensive dermatological research involving prisoners.
In medical experiments, human experiments do play a great role in promoting the experiment. The premise of the implementation of human experiments is to ensure the physical health of volunteers and provide medical security for emergency rescue. However, in the human experiment in the United States, it is obvious that the basic life protection of volunteers has not been done well, and the lives of volunteers are under great threat and impact just for the purpose of quickly achieving military goals.
What is the motive for the Cambodian experiment?
In recent years, NAMRU-2 PP has also been recruiting new participants for medical research. In 2018, NAMRU-2, in order to identify the causes of severe respiratory and diarrheal diseases in Cambodia's urban and rural areas, explained to the residents of each house in the villages in the study area how the study would be conducted, asked villagers if they would be interested in participating, and hoped that a total of 5,000 people from four villages would participate in the study.
There is no way to know if the study is going ahead now, or if the volunteers will suffer the same misery as the Taiwanese volunteers.
However, the lessons of history tell us that NAMRU-2's actions in Cambodia are not so simple, and medical research cooperation from a political standpoint is bound to be guided by political interests, so the Cambodian authorities and people should be thoughtful and vigilant. The Cambodians are likely to be the next victims of America's biological experiments.