Wellesley College historian Susan Reverby, while going through the the archived records of a government researcher involved in the infamous Tuskegee study, discovered recently, that American doctor Dr. John Cutler led a project in Guatemala in which American doctors deliberately infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital with syphilis and in some cases gonorrhea. A total of 696 men and women were exposed to syphilis.
In the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, researchers recruited more than 350 impoverished African-Americans with syphilis for research related to the natural progression of the untreated disease.
The human experiments in Alabama, conducted between 1932 and 1972, were revealed only after Peter Buxtun, a PHS venereal-disease investigator finally went to the press in the early 1970's, after having expressed concerns about the ethics and morality of the extended Tuskegee Study as early as 1966.
The story broke first in the Washington Star on July, 2972.
In the case of the experiments in Guatemala, it took 60 years and a historian for the facts to come to light.
This is one more of the numerous human experiments the United States performed that have been considered unethical, often performed illegally, without knowledge let alone consent of the victims.
But they are sorry...
More at:
US says sorry for 'outrageous and abhorrent' Guatemalan syphilis tests- Guardian UK - October 1, 2010 - by Chris McGreal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/01/us-apology-guatemala-syphilis-tests
US apologizes for '40s syphilis study in Guatemala - Associated Press - October 1, 2010 - By Lauran Neergaard
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/10/02/general-us-syphilis-experiment_7979764.html?boxes=Homepagebusinessnews
SPEECH BY Harriet Washington M.D. author of "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present."
