this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Not that I support it in any way of course, but he's not wrong. There's probably a lot of medical knowledge to be gained by seeing how the babies he experimented on develop in the future. It's just that the ends don't justify the means.

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (6 children)

It depends on the specifics of the experiment. Throughout the 20th century, the people most keen on unethical medical experiments seemed the least able to design useful experiments. Sometimes people claim that we learned lots from the horrific medical experiments taking place at Nazi concentration camps or Japanese facilities under Unit 731, but at best, it's stuff like how long does it take a horribly malnourished person to die if their organs are removed without anaesthesia or how long does it take a horribly malnourished person who's been beaten for weeks to freeze to death, which aren't much use.

[–] Comrade_Spood@slrpnk.net 14 points 1 day ago

The potential value to the Americans of Japanese-provided data, encompassing human research subjects, delivery system theories, and successful field trials, was immense. However, historian Sheldon H. Harris concluded that the Japanese data failed to meet American standards, suggesting instead that the findings from the unit were of minor importance at best. Harris characterized the research results from the Japanese camp as disappointing, concurring with the assessment of Murray Sanders, who characterized the experiments as "crude" and "ineffective."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

To back up your point that the research gained by unit 731 was useless.

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