U.S. 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.Read the rest here.
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."
Secretary Clinton called Guatemalan president Alvara Cabellaros Thursday night to reaffirm the importance of the U.S. relationship with the Latin American country.
This is revolting beyond words.
2 comments:
Public health? Sounds more like eugenics to me.
I love these revelations about the Truman administration. Certain old-timers will harangue me about how honest and transparent Truman was. They usually shut up when I remind them about Truman's friendly relations with "Uncle Joe" Stalin.
It's pretty much common knowledge that Truman engineered the atomic bomb drops in Japan by refusing peace feelers and insisting on unconditional surrender. This common knowledge, however, had to begin as revisionist history spread mainly by fringe elements as diverse as peace activists and the John Birch Society.
No doubt about it. Truman was a wretch.
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