Saturday, October 2, 2010

Guatemala 1940's

The US gov't has issued an apology for a medical study it conducted on "soldiers, prisoners, and mental patients with syphilis and other sexally transmitted diseases" from 1946 to 1948. John C. Cutler a doctor with the Public Health Service and fellow doctors picked inmates in Guatemala jails because that was one country that allowed prisoners to have sex. First prostitutes "with the disease" were used and then the prisoners were directly inoculated. The study also used soldiers and men and women "in Guatemala's national mental health hospital". The study was intended to study the effectiveness of penicilin and to study how STD's were spread. Cutler was also involved in the Tuskegee Institute syphilis experiments in this country in the 1950's. In that case hundreds of African American men with late stage syphilis "were left untreated to enable study of the disease". This information was found by a Wellesley College professor who was investigating the Tuskegee incident. President Obama and Sec't of State Hillary Clinton have both apologized to the Guatemalan government.
(Source: "US apologizes to Guatemala for '40s study" by Rob Stein of The Washington Post. In The Virginia Pilot on 10/02/10)

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