Comrade Marxist Bro
2nd October 2010, 00:25
Just found a real piece of "breaking news" -- I thought I had to share this.
From ABC:
US Apologizes for 1940s STD Study That Infected Guatemalans with Syphilis -- President Obama Calls Guatemalan President to Offer Nation's Apology
By Ron Claiborne
In 1946, American researchers performed an appalling experiment (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11776158), infecting unwitting Guatemalans with a potentially deadly disease in the name of public health.
In an effort to see if penicillin could prevent or treat syphilis, government scientists went to the impoverished Central American country to deliberately infect nearly 700 men and women -- including prisoners, inmates in insane asylums, and even some soldiers -- with the potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease.
The researchers used prostitutes to infect the men and hypodermic needles to infect the women.
The experiments, which lasted from 1946 to 1949, were uncovered last year by Susan Reverby, a professor at Wellesley College, as she was researching a book.
When she came across the Guatemala study, her first reaction was, "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh, my God," Reverby told ABC News (http://www.abcnews.go.com/) today.
The evidence is clear that [the subjects] didn't know. The authorities were told something, but the people didn't know," she said.
U.S. Officials Apologize for Guatemala Research
President Obama himself spoke with the president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, via phone today to express "deep regret" over the study, the White House said in a statement.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also issued a joint apology today in a written statement.
"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," the statement read.
A U.S. government official told ABC News today that the National Institutes of Health will launch two panels to examine the Guatemala study.
Guatemala's Ambassador to the United States, Francisco Villagran de León said today that he appreciated the decision for a full investigation. "We don't even know if there is a list of these individuals. If there are any survivors, which is not likely, we should make sure that they should receive care," the ambassador said.
Guatemala Experiments Similar to Tuskegee Syphilis Study
The experiments are eerily similar to the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments on African Americans, also run by the U.S. Public Health Service. Reverby was researching the case when she came across the records from Guatemala.
In the Tuskegee study, which ran from 1932 to 1972, the same American Public Health service researchers studied 400 poor black men in Alabama who already had syphilis. But the men never were told they were sick, and they never were treated for it. Some participants died from the disease.
The effects of the Tuskegee study continues to have a widespread effect on African Americans' confidence in the public health system. A 2008 study found that black Americans are less likely to participate in research studies (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4510048) than whites, a factor that researchers attributed to fears -- rooted in the Tuskegee tests -- that research participants could incur harm.
(http://abcnews.go.com/WN/us-apologizes-std-study-infected-guatemalans-syphilis-1940s/story?id=11779633)
From WSJ:
U.S. Apologizes to Guatemala for Syphilis Study
By Betsy McKay
The U.S. apologized Friday for 1940s government-sponsored experiments in which hundreds of Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers and mentally ill patients were intentionally infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
The subjects were infected with syphilis or gonorrhea, without their consent, as part of the experiments conducted between 1946 and 1948 by researchers in the U.S. Public Health Service. They were infected through injection or by way of prostitutes who were allowed to visit prisoners. Then the subjects were treated with penicillin. About 1,500 study subjects were involved, according to the U.S.
The aim of the research—conducted with cooperation from some Guatemalan officials—was to determine whether the relatively new antibiotic could be used to prevent infection after exposure to the diseases. The results were never published.
The study was brought to the U.S. government's attention this summer by Wellesley College historian Susan Reverby. It reflects a new development in a dark corner in the history of medical research that led, starting in the 1970s, to regulations to protect human participants.
"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," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said in a joint statement. "We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."
President Barack Obama planned to call Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom to apologize, the White House said Friday.
U.S. officials said the government has asked the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, a federal advisory body, to investigate the research. Separately, a presidential commission will work to ensure medical research globally meets current ethical standards, they said.
In a statement Friday through its embassy in Washington, Guatemala condemned the research and said it would cooperate with the U.S. probe. "The government of Guatemala condemns these actions and deeply deplores that these experiments affected innocent people," the statement read.
Both U.S. and Guatemalan officials said it was too early to discuss whether the U.S. government would offer compensation to the people who were infected, or their descendants, saying they would await the results of the Institute of Medicine investigation.
Ms. Reverby said she came across the experiment while conducting research on a famous 40-year study in Tuskegee, Ala., in which researchers studied—but refrained from treating—African-American men who had syphilis. The fallout from that study, halted in 1972, helped give rise to modern bioethics and protections that now forbid such ethical violations.
U.S. regulations now require that human subjects of medical research be properly informed about experiments in which they are participating and provide informed consent. Use of vulnerable populations is restricted.
Ms. Reverby posted her study online Friday, and it is scheduled for publication in January in the Journal of Policy History.
It remains unclear how many such experiments American researchers conducted in the past, experts said. More than 40 studies involving intentional infection in the U.S. are known, said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
The Public Health Service knew at the time that its research would raise ethical questions, and that is one reason it did the work in Guatemala, Ms. Reverby said. Her study quotes Thomas Parran, surgeon general at the time, acknowledging that "we couldn't do such an experiment in this country."
Guatemala also was chosen because its leading venereal-disease public-health official had trained with the U.S. Public Health Service, her study said.
Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said the Guatemala work "takes your breath away." He said he knows of no other instance in which the U.S. government had deliberately infected prisoners or other institutionalized people overseas. "People tend to want to believe what happened at Tuskegee was an anomaly, but here you see the same attitude toward minorities" and vulnerable populations, he said.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859204575526030688801468.html)
From ABC:
US Apologizes for 1940s STD Study That Infected Guatemalans with Syphilis -- President Obama Calls Guatemalan President to Offer Nation's Apology
By Ron Claiborne
In 1946, American researchers performed an appalling experiment (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11776158), infecting unwitting Guatemalans with a potentially deadly disease in the name of public health.
In an effort to see if penicillin could prevent or treat syphilis, government scientists went to the impoverished Central American country to deliberately infect nearly 700 men and women -- including prisoners, inmates in insane asylums, and even some soldiers -- with the potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease.
The researchers used prostitutes to infect the men and hypodermic needles to infect the women.
The experiments, which lasted from 1946 to 1949, were uncovered last year by Susan Reverby, a professor at Wellesley College, as she was researching a book.
When she came across the Guatemala study, her first reaction was, "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh, my God," Reverby told ABC News (http://www.abcnews.go.com/) today.
The evidence is clear that [the subjects] didn't know. The authorities were told something, but the people didn't know," she said.
U.S. Officials Apologize for Guatemala Research
President Obama himself spoke with the president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, via phone today to express "deep regret" over the study, the White House said in a statement.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also issued a joint apology today in a written statement.
"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," the statement read.
A U.S. government official told ABC News today that the National Institutes of Health will launch two panels to examine the Guatemala study.
Guatemala's Ambassador to the United States, Francisco Villagran de León said today that he appreciated the decision for a full investigation. "We don't even know if there is a list of these individuals. If there are any survivors, which is not likely, we should make sure that they should receive care," the ambassador said.
Guatemala Experiments Similar to Tuskegee Syphilis Study
The experiments are eerily similar to the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments on African Americans, also run by the U.S. Public Health Service. Reverby was researching the case when she came across the records from Guatemala.
In the Tuskegee study, which ran from 1932 to 1972, the same American Public Health service researchers studied 400 poor black men in Alabama who already had syphilis. But the men never were told they were sick, and they never were treated for it. Some participants died from the disease.
The effects of the Tuskegee study continues to have a widespread effect on African Americans' confidence in the public health system. A 2008 study found that black Americans are less likely to participate in research studies (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4510048) than whites, a factor that researchers attributed to fears -- rooted in the Tuskegee tests -- that research participants could incur harm.
(http://abcnews.go.com/WN/us-apologizes-std-study-infected-guatemalans-syphilis-1940s/story?id=11779633)
From WSJ:
U.S. Apologizes to Guatemala for Syphilis Study
By Betsy McKay
The U.S. apologized Friday for 1940s government-sponsored experiments in which hundreds of Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers and mentally ill patients were intentionally infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
The subjects were infected with syphilis or gonorrhea, without their consent, as part of the experiments conducted between 1946 and 1948 by researchers in the U.S. Public Health Service. They were infected through injection or by way of prostitutes who were allowed to visit prisoners. Then the subjects were treated with penicillin. About 1,500 study subjects were involved, according to the U.S.
The aim of the research—conducted with cooperation from some Guatemalan officials—was to determine whether the relatively new antibiotic could be used to prevent infection after exposure to the diseases. The results were never published.
The study was brought to the U.S. government's attention this summer by Wellesley College historian Susan Reverby. It reflects a new development in a dark corner in the history of medical research that led, starting in the 1970s, to regulations to protect human participants.
"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," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said in a joint statement. "We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."
President Barack Obama planned to call Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom to apologize, the White House said Friday.
U.S. officials said the government has asked the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, a federal advisory body, to investigate the research. Separately, a presidential commission will work to ensure medical research globally meets current ethical standards, they said.
In a statement Friday through its embassy in Washington, Guatemala condemned the research and said it would cooperate with the U.S. probe. "The government of Guatemala condemns these actions and deeply deplores that these experiments affected innocent people," the statement read.
Both U.S. and Guatemalan officials said it was too early to discuss whether the U.S. government would offer compensation to the people who were infected, or their descendants, saying they would await the results of the Institute of Medicine investigation.
Ms. Reverby said she came across the experiment while conducting research on a famous 40-year study in Tuskegee, Ala., in which researchers studied—but refrained from treating—African-American men who had syphilis. The fallout from that study, halted in 1972, helped give rise to modern bioethics and protections that now forbid such ethical violations.
U.S. regulations now require that human subjects of medical research be properly informed about experiments in which they are participating and provide informed consent. Use of vulnerable populations is restricted.
Ms. Reverby posted her study online Friday, and it is scheduled for publication in January in the Journal of Policy History.
It remains unclear how many such experiments American researchers conducted in the past, experts said. More than 40 studies involving intentional infection in the U.S. are known, said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
The Public Health Service knew at the time that its research would raise ethical questions, and that is one reason it did the work in Guatemala, Ms. Reverby said. Her study quotes Thomas Parran, surgeon general at the time, acknowledging that "we couldn't do such an experiment in this country."
Guatemala also was chosen because its leading venereal-disease public-health official had trained with the U.S. Public Health Service, her study said.
Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said the Guatemala work "takes your breath away." He said he knows of no other instance in which the U.S. government had deliberately infected prisoners or other institutionalized people overseas. "People tend to want to believe what happened at Tuskegee was an anomaly, but here you see the same attitude toward minorities" and vulnerable populations, he said.
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859204575526030688801468.html)