GUATEMALA: 83 died in U.S. syphilis experiments, report finds

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REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- At least 83 people in Guatemala died as a result of a blatantly unethical series of experiments conducted by U.S. doctors beginning in the 1940s in which more than a thousand subjects were purposefully infected with sexually transmitted diseases without their consent or knowledge.

The figure appears in a lengthy new report released last week by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The report, titled Ethically Impossible: STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1953, is available for download here.

U.S. President Obama convened the commission last year after the Guatemala experiments came to light, prompting swift apologies from Washington to Guatemala’s government.

Between 1946 and 1948, the agency then known as the U.S. Public Health Service infected about 1,300 Guatemalan sex workers, prison inmates, soldiers and mental health patients with the sexually transmitted diseases syphilis, gonorrhea or chancroid. The experiments, led by Dr. John Cutler, were meant to test whether penicilin could treat the diseases.

‘The Guatemala experiments involved unconscionable basic violations of ethics, even as judged against the researchers’ own recognition of the requirements of the medical ethics of the day,’ said Commission Chairwoman Amy Gutmann in a statement. ‘The individuals who approved, conducted, facilitated and funded these experiments are morally culpable to various degrees for these wrongs.’

-- Daniel Hernandez