Before exploring this story, I want to first praise President Obama for investigating one of America's darker historical moments, and for the apology he has issued to Guatemala's president.
This is how AlterNet begins telling the story:
United States government scientists infected 5,500 Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea between 1946 and 1948 to study the effects of penicillin, according to recent findings of a U.S. presidential panel investigation set up by President Obama.
The Guatemalans forced to participate received no such explanation and did not give informed consent. In fact, of the estimated 5,500 participants, only about 700 received some sort of treatment.
“The researchers put their own medical advancement first and human decency a far second,” Anita Allen, a member of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues told the Associated Press.
From 1946 to 1948, government scientists working for the U.S. Public Health Service and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau were given free reign to secretly infect Guatemalan soldiers, sex workers, mental health patients and and prisoners.
According to the presidential panel convened by President Obama, the scientists worked with almost no oversight, and the panel found shockingly abhorrent stories. The Associated Press has reported on two particularly difficult anecdotes found by the investigation:
Seven women with epilepsy, who were housed at Guatemala’s Asilo de Alienados (Home for the Insane), were injected with syphilis below the back of the skull, a risky procedure. The researchers thought the new infection might somehow help cure epilepsy. The women each got bacterial meningitis, probably as a result of the unsterilized injections, but were treated.
Perhaps the most disturbing details involved a female syphilis patient with an undisclosed terminal illness. The researchers, curious to see the impact of an additional infection, infected her with gonorrhea in her eyes and elsewhere. Six months later she died.
While the Guatemala experiments were already thought of as one of the most horrific moments in the history of U.S. medical experimentation, President Obama's investigative panel has shed new light on just how unethical such experiments were performed and their impact on Guatemalan citizens.
After learning much of the results, President Obama has called Guatemala's President, Alvaro Colom, to apologize, and has requested further study by his presidential panel to, according to the Guardian:
...examine federally funded international studies to make sure current research is being done ethically. That report is expected at the end of the year.
Yes, this is a horrific historical moment. But kudos to President Obama for confronting it head-on.
He deserves our praise on this.
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