United States Intentionally Infects Quatemalans with Syphilis, Gonorrhea; US Apologizes

Susan M. Reverby, a Wellesley College historian, uncovered documents detailing another dark chapter in US history. The professor found that US government researchers deliberately infected 696 Guatemalan men and women with syphilis (or in some cases gonorrhea and chancroid) in the 1940s. The US apologized today.

In a synopsis of a report scheduled to appear in January's Journal of Policy History, Reverby writes that the US Public Health Service embarked on the Guatemalan experiments even as it continued the long-condemned work in Tuskegee, where men with syphilis were left untreated so that researchers could follow the progression of the disease. The Guatemala experiments were conducted against the backdrop of great excitement among doctors about the emergence of antibiotics, and researchers -- engaging in practices now regarded as deeply unethical -- schemed to expose vulnerable subjects to further their understanding of the new drugs and STDs. Reverby writes that US physicians selected men in a Guatemalan penitentiary and army barracks as well as men and women in a mental hospital for the study. Initially, the researchers used prostitutes to attempt to infect the prisoners. When that approach largely failed, the doctors then "did direct inoculations made from syphilis bacteria poured onto the men's penises or on forearms and faces that were slightly abraded." The researchers, whose work was underwritten by the National Institutes of Health and sanctioned by the surgeon general at the time, wanted to know whether penicillin could prevent -- not just cure -- syphilis. They also hoped their experiments would lead to better blood tests and dosing strategies for antibiotics. In one of the statements released this morning, US government officials said that most -- although not all -- of the unwitting subjects were treated. In addition to syphilis, the government statement says that the subjects were exposed to two other STDs, gonorrhea and chancroid. At least one person died, the statement said, although it is unclear whether the death was caused by the experiments or another health problem. Until Reverby discovered the documents describing the experiment, they had sat secreted away at the University of Pittsburgh among the other papers of the researcher in charge of the Guatemala project.

Top US government officials last night contacted Guatemala's president, Álvaro Colom Caballeros, and its ambassador to Washington. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Colom "to express her personal outrage and deep regret that such reprehensible research could occur." Any decision about making reparations -- financial or otherwise -- will await the outcome of the two study panels, officials said. What, more studies?

Sidebar: A similar study was conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Ala., on nearly 400 poor African-American men with syphilis whose disease was allowed to progress without treatment. The subjects were not told they were ill. The Guatemala study was done under the direction of U.S. Public Health Service physician John C. Cutler, who later ran the Tuskagee experiment, said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes for Health.

Shadiness!


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