US Syphilis Experiments in Guatemala

Today we talked about the Nuremburg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, & the Belmont Report as key documents guiding the ethics of research with human subjects. We also learned how specific, egregious violations of human rights - Nazi Medical experiments, the Tuskegee Study, the short-course AZT trials - led directly to the development of these guidelines. During this discussion someone mentioned a recent incident related to the Tuskegee study, and I'd like to share an article from the New York Times with you ("US Apologizes for Syphilis Tests in Guatemala") to give you more details.

In 2011, thanks to the laudable and diligent efforts by Wellesley College professor Susan Reverby, the world became aware of a syphilis study conducted by American public health doctors in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. It sounds like a familiar story, but there's one detail that's different: unlike Tuskegee, the Guatemalan research subjects were deliberately infected with the disease.

Dr. Mark Siegler (University of Chicago) is quoted for the article, stating: "It’s ironic — no, it’s worse than that, it’s appalling — that, at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, the U.S. government was supporting research that placed human subjects at enormous risk.”

I couldn't agree with him more.