subject: The Health Highlights - Oct. 1, 2010 STD Experiments in Guatemala [print this page] 'Clearly Unethical,' U.S'Clearly Unethical,' U.S. Says J&J, FDA Take Blame for Secret Motrin Recall U.S. Sex Ed Funding Moves Beyond Abstinence-Only More Than 10 Million Fisher-Price Toys Recalled
U.S. is making that apologize to Guatemalan after it was revealed that scientists deliberately infected Guatemalan prisoners and mental patients with syphilis 60 years ago.
The government-funded experiment, which ran from 1946 to 1948, was discovered by a Wellesley College medical historian. It apparently was conducted to test whether penicillin, then relatively new, could prevent infection with sexually transmitted diseases.
The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades.
The government researcher which led the work in Guatemala, Dr. John Cutler, also was involved in this country's infamous Tuskegee experiment, where, from 1932 to 1972, scientists tracked 600 black men in Alabama, who had syphilis but didn't know it, without ever offering them treatment.
STD Experiments in Guatemala 'Clearly Unethical,' U.S. Says
The United States issued an apology Friday for government-sponsored experiments that deliberately infected hundreds of people in Guatemala with gonorrhea or syphilis in the 1940s.
U.S. Public Health Service researchers and others experimented on institutionalized mental patients, giving them gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge. About one-third of the patients who became infected never received adequate treatment,
The government researcher who led the work in Guatemala also was involved in the infamous Tuskegee experiment. From 1932 to 1972 scientists tracked 600 black men in Alabama who had syphilis but didn't know it, without ever offering them treatment, the Associated Press reported.
