EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Sorry: US Apologizes for Syphilis and Gonorrhea Experiments on Guatemalans
US researchers infected patients with STDs without their consent in the 1940s
US government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago.
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius apologized for the United States Friday for funding a 1940s study in which hundreds of Guatemalans were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea without their consent.
(AFP/Alex Wong) Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study.
About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment.
On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service.
"The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical," according to the joint statement from Clinton and Sebelius. "Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."
The apology was directed to Guatemala and to Hispanic residents of the United States, according to officials.
A telebriefing with Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and Arturo Valenzuela, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Affairs is expected around 11 a.m. ET.
The episode raises inevitable comparisons to the infamous Tuskegee experiment, the Alabama study where hundreds of African-American men were told they were being treated for syphilis, but in fact were denied treatment. That U.S. government study lasted from 1932 until press reports revealed it in 1972.
The Guatemala experiments, which were conducted between 1946 and 1948, never provided any useful information and the records were hidden.
They were discovered by Susan Reverby, a professor of women's studies at Wellesley College, and was posted on her website.
According to Reverby's report, the Guatemalan project was co-sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service, the NIH, the Pan-American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the Pan American Health Organization) and the Guatemalan government. The experiments involved 696 subjects - male prisoners and female patients in the National Mental Health Hospital.
The researchers were trying to determine whether the antibiotic penicillin could prevent early syphilis infection, not just cure it, Reverby writes. After the subjects were infected with the syphilis bacteria - through visits with prostitutes who had the disease and direct inoculations - Reverby notes that it is unclear whether they were later cured or given proper treatment.
Reverby, who has written extensively about the Tuskegee experiments, found the evidence while conducting further research on the Alabama syphilis study.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
71 Comments so far
Show AllNotice the 40 and more years later pattern? An apology all that is needed once something a fait accompli.
Speaking of it THEN when it was happening and could have been stopped would have resulted in that same group of "patriots" declare that it nothing more then speculation and people should wait on "The Evidence".
Excellent point!
Indeed.
Compensation? This comes out now because most all involved are blind and more likely dead.
Seems to make sense beyond the capitalist rampage for resources that the reason we have a world dominating military is that somewhere in the back portions of the American reptilian brain is a generational memory of the horrid despicable acts that we have done to our own as well as other world persons. It is a memory so strong that we feel we must defend ourselves from the prophetic karmic retribution that must come from the total void in the American soul that has for centuries now killed, maimed, tortured, stolen from, experimented on and otherwise abused by the millions our citizens and the rest of the worlds people.
Don't believe me? Set of a noise maker firework in a crowd and count the numbers that piss themselves or hide behind women and children.
Counting the numbers that piss themselves or hide behind women and children imply that these evil deeds and dispicable acts were done only by men. In times past, this may have been true -- because the women were not allowed to participate in determining the actions of our government.
While times have changed; the evil dispicable acts have not. Now is PAST TIME for women to stand up and speak the truth from a position of love and empathy. We women must stop the dispicable actions of our government that continue to this day.
Our Karmic retribution that comes from the total void of the American soul can be avoided by the action of good women. Now is the time for women to come to the aid of our nation.
Unfortunately, the few women in our government have lost any feminine values. They get into positions of power by acting like men. We need an ethical revolution. Greed is not good.
how ironic that the apology came from two such women.
notice the 300 appr. years and NO apologies nor reparations to NATIVE INDIANS?
did you know that native indians are considered "ALIENS" by the USA? yup. right to this moment.
of course that is also because native indians maintain their rightful claims as "nations"...
within the "nation" that stole land from THEM.
has the USA Apologized to Vietnam? cambodia? laos? Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Honduras, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, China, Russia, Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and the people suffering under tyrannies US INSTALLED or Supported - all over the globe?
hmmmmmmmm.....
"THE USA IS NEVER WRONG. she only makes a FEW mistakes...".
Yes, the pattern is quite telling. They have lots of these mea culpas ready and packaged for press releases when the CIA or some other part of the US 'intelligence' jackals are involved in destabilizing some government. They have to game the PR to counteract the 'negative' stuff like what is going down in Ecuador. THAT pattern makes this empty apology all the more reprehensible.
I've MARKED my calender...
Accordingly, circa 2070 the great grand daughter of Hillary Clinton will make the following speech to the people of Afghanistan (assuming there will be any left):
"SORRY we FUCKED your country and its people... the mineral resources are now gone and the gas/oil pipeline ran dry decades ago - so we are returning it to you with our sincere apologies"
This is sick and the usa is what it denies. Tony
Good to know that nothing being done today will require an apology 60 years from now...
And that all the crimes of the past have been unearthed...
Humans are capable of such inhumanity. Openness light and truth are our ONLY hopes.
Long shadows of the Tuskeegee Experiment, where hundreds of thousands of American Blacks in the South were deliberately infected with syphilis... and left to die. Under medical observation. It was later revealed to be not so much a medical study, but an early attempt to 'curb' the burgeoning population of American Negroes. Ethnic Cleansing if you will.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
I concur with your observations with one exception. In the infamous Tuskeegee Experiment the African-American men were not deliberately infected with syphillis. The men were known to have syphillis. They were followed to observe the natural history of untreated syphillis. This is an important distinction. The experiment was clearly immoral, a violation of the canon of ethics that physicians are sworn to adhere to, and incongurent with the international laws that existed at the time concerning the participation of human subjects in medical experiments. Such an experiment would never be approved by the institutional review board of modern medical institutions.
Visit any emergency room in any US hospital and view the soda, candy, chip and snack machines. All that are offered to the waiting sick and poor. All things KNOWN to bring you back in to the hospital with consumption and time.
"canon of ethics that physicians are sworn to adhere to" that went out sometime around the days when Shamans healed.
Physicians are becoming more and more the Drug Pushers for The Pharmaceutical Industries.
I thought physicians always were just an extension of Big Pharma? Was I wrong up to now?
Yep. See the development of birth control pills in 'overpopulated' Puerto Rico for more scientific fun and games. The real NAZIs were always here, not Germany.
Dr. Mengela is smiling in his grave -- except his experimental records were available and some of some limited use.
No good reason to think this sort of thing is not still going on from the US -- and there are surely indications it is. So how is that hopey-changy-open-government thing working out? Anything on the doctors and torture front? How about new crowd control weapons being tested on prisoners? What about that big dispersant experiment in the Gulf of Mexico?
(Not to mention the things which are not to mention.)
*Comment deleted by site administrators for using all capital letters*
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
!!!CAP-COPS!!! ...well done comrades - I say 'burn him' (all caps)
more capital punishment!
Gee, we're sorry. Hey, what's for dinner? Is "Dancing With The Stars" on tonight?
Tom Joad,
Well stated.
Central America should consider itself lucky if STDs were the only nasties we sent there. Not.
Too little, too late.
Yet another series of atrocities at the hands of the US Government.
How convenient we discover this now, as there probably isn't anyone to hold responsible. Perhaps it was a "national security issue" then, and the documents were classified. It would seem odd that the information was just sitting around in a box in a janitor's closet for 60 years.
You know things are bad when they have to send a woman out there to make the excuses. Seems like the U.S., in its' brief history, has killed more people than Adolf Hitler could ever dream of.
you want chicken pox blankets with that?
One can hardly be shocked these days, but still...
One wonders at the doctors responsible for doing the infection, what they were thinking. I assume medical personnel were involved, but what do I know.
US soldiers execute afghan civilians and cut off their fingers for trophies, US troops cut off the genitalia of Native Americans and use the scrotums for tobacco pouches, US infects guatemalans with STDs, US sells nerve gas to saddam hussein, US murders 3 million vietnamese, cambodians and laotians, US nukes two civilian cities after a war is effectively over, US chuckles while Israel murders US citizens and sailors with impunity, US is toast.
George Washington told settlers to kill the Indians men, women and children and skin them using the skins for bridal reigns. It was so hot to take a strip from behind a maidens ear over her breast including the nipple and down to the ankle. If done right the rider could play with the hardened nipples when he rode into town.
Ok, Abe, I think you mean "bridle" as in tack for horses, not "bridal" as in here she comes in her long white dress. This one needs a source, please. How do you know this? Not that I in any way excuse the genocidal treatment of native Americans.
Bridle bridal whats the difference?
G Washington statements... Howard Zinn People History of the US
Not sure about the nipple part it might be in People history but think I read it elsewhere, sorry.
Bring America Back !!!!
**Okay Kathleen==you are forgiven, but boy do you need
a makeover...when you were being vetted as a possible
VP runningmate, you should've had your hair colored
to match your dark eyebrows natural color.
---This article reminds one of the intelligence
nuts back when they slipped LSD and other mind
benders to unsuspecting Americans==just to see
the reactions==like jumping out the windows of
skyscrapers and stuff.
**A more recent flick on the subject is the one
called 'Men who stare at Goats'.
**Not too long ago, we had proof the big Anthrax
Scare after 9/11, was carried out with supplies
of the strains from the National Security Agency.
Remember the envelopes with the white powder mailed
to congress folks , and media personnel ??
Ain't is just great ?
"Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."
I see...
I'm sure you will list the names of the medical doctors in the USA who were involved in the program, their assets and bring charges against them. And if most of them are dead, what about the money the pharmacology industry made off of the data from the studies? When will you issue a copy of the studies themselves? A lot of university research departments have chair names for assholes that are lauded as 'great medical researchers' and considered pillars of their community when in fact their careers are based on some of this human experimentation crap. We know, for example, that the recommended daily allowances of vitamins and minerals in the USA in the 50s came DIRECTLY from the captured NAZI experimentation on Jews during WWII to find out the bare assed minimum they had to give the Jews to keep them working. Shouldn't shame now replace the fame? Or is this just a PR exercise to counter tha Ecuador thing?
And finally, when is the U.S. government going to publish the fact that in Panama during the second world war, the U.S. Army experimented on Puerto Rican soldiers (these were US citizens drafted by uncle sam in WWII) with mustard gas?
I know, we'll have to wait for the CIA to be doing a number on Venezuela for THAT 'apology'. And forget about names, assets, corporations made rich by the research, etcetera. Retribution and or restitution is only for the poor and unconnected in the USA. It kinda puts a whole new spin on the term 'white privilege'.
I could go on. When these 'great medical researchers' deal with animals, it gets really gross. Do you know that a great deal of scientific (in the NAZI model of efficiency) goes on RIGHT NOW to find out when the 'models' (animals like mice, rabbits, pigs. chimps, etc.) injected or exposed to different substances feel pain? The process of dying in rats is used to measure the toxicity of a given drug. It is the worst kind of soulless horror and all done for your health and let's not forget all those cosmetics developed using rabbit torture to see if some eyeliner stings by putting it DIRECTLY on the rabbit's eye. We are a brutal, barbarous society.
While we are in the contrite mood, how about our government apologizing for overthrowing Guatemalan democracy in 1954?
thanks
They are too busy overthrowing the government of Ecuador right now for that.
They are too busy rounding up and deporting workers from Guatemala.
The way an apology goes is:
1. I'm sorry
2. I won't do it again
3. How can I make it up to you?
The apology came because they were discovered or they wouldn't have apologized. The US will continue its pattern of abuse throughout the world and noone, except the US itself will receive any compensation. Notice how Iraq has to compensate the US for invading it but no reparations (Vietnam?) will ever be forthcoming because the US is a criminal state and likely to be one as long as it can. This pattern started before 1776 and it has never stopped and never will until it is FORCED to behave.
Native Americans are first on the list of reparations. Each native American who survived extermination (5% of the total) should be a millionaire today. Instead look how they are actually living. What a thoroughly disgusting history this country has. When will the people become aware of it? Only when they are forced to.
What we have is a cultural anthropology problem. The group that has run this monster of a country from day one simply believes that anything or anyone that can be used or abused for the welfare of 'the group' is fair game.
This elite group is stupid. We in the biosphere are all connected and the mindset and behavior of this sick, egotistical group is destroying the planet.
Native American's won't take your money, they want you to live up to your treatys and they want thier land that even the Supreme Court has ruled is thiers. Just quite trying to apply your values to something you don't understand. And, if you want to know what that feels like, look at the Gulf of Mexico or drink a glass of water.
But they hate us for our freedoms. No, really...
well I guess it's a start. sorry for killing your family, ms Afghanistan. Wish we didn't kill your kids ms. Iraq. Pardon our bombs everybody. please excuse the drones flying around your homes, people of Pakistan. pardon the hellfire misiles. don't know what came over us. please escuse the bombs about to hit you tomorrow. Sorry about keeping your sons in prison so long, all you Muslims.
Pardon all the death and destruction Gaza, please excuse us Palestine.....
Perfect !
Shame on us ...and we wonder why the world hates us. I can only imagine how many Mad Scientist are hidden in bunkers today, studing germ war fare , and the results of different poisens. When people think they are above all laws, and judgement, as the U.S. feels ,well you can do anything you want.
The fact that George Bush, and his gang have gotten away with Genecide and murder, makes it all clear for every Nut in Power to do as He or She see's fit. A world of chaos, and sorrow, is all we have coming, if we don't stop it soon.
If Americans were permitted to see the way the rest of the Industrial world lives, we would riot in the streets ! Americans have one of the worst chances for a comfortable lifestyle, and healthcare that keeps you alive ! We are at War now for almost 10 years ! That is like the wars of centuries ago. We are going to have to be sorry for many, many things we do.The crazy part, is that our actions don't just affect the people that we murder, and torture, they affect us too, and as time goes on, it will get worse, and worse. Only we can stop this, only we can save our Country .
Hey the article forgot to mention MK Ultra, I wonder why?
ask Koreans what the US-led UN military did to koreans during the korean war.
every new biological and chemical weapons, as well as any new conventional weapons of mass destruction of the time, were tested on them with absolutely no regard to human rights.
yes, during the progressive Noh administration (before the current fascist president Lee came to power), over a thousand mass graves of civilians from the war period had been dug up, based on witnesses' testimony, and all, except a handful, were confirmed as committed by the righties and their backers, the US / UN.
of course the global fascists based in US and its allies engineered the economic crisis (through the usual world bank and IMF) to drive out the progressive Kim Dae-jung and Noh leadership, and put Lee in power, who immediately shut the truth-discovering process down.
Just when I thought I couldn't be sickened by CD. articles anymore, they think of one that makes me want to hurl on my keyboard. Almost nothing surprises me anymore about the horrible way some people act. I'm not ashamed of America, though, America didn't do it, people did.
We should be rioting in the streets, though, because there is nothing else left to say or do. We should all be nearly raving mad with anger and moral indignation. Because deep down in their souls, any sane person that knows about the unacceptable ways in which people are treating one another feels intense pain that borders on chronic torture, pain that must be somewhat suppressed in order to live a "productive" American life.
I wake up daily giving thanks for my poverty stricken (by American standards) yet vibrant and nonviolent life. I realize that I have been thankfully insulated from true horror, thus far and without immunity, and within my heart is a very deep wound. I know many people on here grieve for our brothers and sisters in the United States and around the world whom are victims of vicious or subtle, horrible violence, and these kinds of bogus social and health experiments. We all know that we are the ideal candidates for a horrific social experiment ourselves, and it kinda feels to many like we are already unknowingly or knowingly participating in one, or several.
Manifest Peace, work toward raising this low and utterly useless vibration and stopping this sick cycle of torture and mayhem. We can do it by raising our own vibrations and infusing ourselves with the liberating self knowledge that we do all we can to transmute the pain and grief with love and Ultimate Compassion. If we have to riot to be recognized, so be it. Love must prevail. No more hatred, only healing, only sanity...Love to ALL. Peace.
when will the USA apologize for AIDS?
the sound of one clap-handing