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Guatemala syphilis experiments
The Guatemala syphilis experiments were United States-led human experiments conducted in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. The experiments were led by physician John Charles Cutler, who also participated in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Doctors infected 1,300 people, including at least 600 soldiers and people from various impoverished groups (including, but not limited to, sex workers, orphans, inmates of mental hospitals, and prisoners) with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid, without the informed consent of the subjects. Only 700 of them received treatment. In total, 5,500 people were involved in all research experiments, of whom 83 died by the end of 1953, though it is unknown whether or not the injections were responsible for all these deaths. Serology studies continued until 1953 involving the same vulnerable populations in addition to children from state-run schools, an orphanage, and rural towns. However, the intentional infection of patients ended with the original study.
On October 1, 2010, the U.S. President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Health and Human Services formally apologized to Guatemala for the ethical violations. Guatemala condemned the experiment as a crime against humanity. Multiple unsuccessful lawsuits have since been filed in the US.
Susan Mokotoff Reverby of Wellesley College uncovered information about these experiments in Cutler's archived papers in 2005 while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study. She shared her findings with United States government officials. Francis Collins, the NIH director at the time of the revelations, called the experiments "a dark chapter in history of medicine" and commented that modern rules prohibit conducting human subject research without informed consent.
Rabbits had been used to test treatments for syphilis since the early 20th century, when Sahachiro Hata injected them with arsphenamine, which became known as "the magic bullet" for treating syphilis. They were later injected in the 1940s with penicillin as part of research into methods for preventing syphilis. Around this same time, there was a push by medical professionals, including the U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran, to further the knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases and discover more viable prophylaxis and treatment options in humans.[citation needed]
This search for new methods became stronger and won more supporters with the onset of World War II. This was largely due to an effort to protect the U.S. military forces from widespread infections of STDs such as gonorrhea, as well as the particularly painful regimen of prophylaxis that involved in the injection of a silver proteinate into subjects' penises. At the time, it was estimated that venereal diseases would affect 350,000 soldiers, which would equate to eliminating two armed divisions for an entire year. The cost of these losses, which would amount to about $34 million at the time, made research for STD treatments particularly urgent.
The first field trials driven by this push for new developments in STD treatment and preventative measures were the Terre Haute prison experiments from 1943 to 1944, which were conducted and supported by many of the same individuals who would go on to participate in the Guatemalan syphilis experiments only a few years later.
The goal of this experiment was to find a more suitable STD prophylaxis by infecting human subjects recruited from prison populations with gonorrhea. Though at first the idea of using human subjects was controversial, the support of Thomas Parran and Colonel John A. Rodgers, Executive Officer of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, enabled John F. Mahoney and Cassius J. Van Slyke to begin implementing the experiments. John Cutler, a young associate of Mahoney, helped conduct the experiments, and went on to lead the Guatemala syphilis experiments.
The experiments in Terre Haute were the precursor for the Guatemalan experiments. It was the first to demonstrate how earnestly military leaders pushed for new developments to combat STDs and their willingness to infect human subjects. It also explained why the study clinicians would choose Guatemala: to avoid the ethical constraints related to individual consent, other adverse legal consequences, and bad publicity.
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Guatemala syphilis experiments
The Guatemala syphilis experiments were United States-led human experiments conducted in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. The experiments were led by physician John Charles Cutler, who also participated in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Doctors infected 1,300 people, including at least 600 soldiers and people from various impoverished groups (including, but not limited to, sex workers, orphans, inmates of mental hospitals, and prisoners) with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid, without the informed consent of the subjects. Only 700 of them received treatment. In total, 5,500 people were involved in all research experiments, of whom 83 died by the end of 1953, though it is unknown whether or not the injections were responsible for all these deaths. Serology studies continued until 1953 involving the same vulnerable populations in addition to children from state-run schools, an orphanage, and rural towns. However, the intentional infection of patients ended with the original study.
On October 1, 2010, the U.S. President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Health and Human Services formally apologized to Guatemala for the ethical violations. Guatemala condemned the experiment as a crime against humanity. Multiple unsuccessful lawsuits have since been filed in the US.
Susan Mokotoff Reverby of Wellesley College uncovered information about these experiments in Cutler's archived papers in 2005 while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study. She shared her findings with United States government officials. Francis Collins, the NIH director at the time of the revelations, called the experiments "a dark chapter in history of medicine" and commented that modern rules prohibit conducting human subject research without informed consent.
Rabbits had been used to test treatments for syphilis since the early 20th century, when Sahachiro Hata injected them with arsphenamine, which became known as "the magic bullet" for treating syphilis. They were later injected in the 1940s with penicillin as part of research into methods for preventing syphilis. Around this same time, there was a push by medical professionals, including the U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran, to further the knowledge of sexually transmitted diseases and discover more viable prophylaxis and treatment options in humans.[citation needed]
This search for new methods became stronger and won more supporters with the onset of World War II. This was largely due to an effort to protect the U.S. military forces from widespread infections of STDs such as gonorrhea, as well as the particularly painful regimen of prophylaxis that involved in the injection of a silver proteinate into subjects' penises. At the time, it was estimated that venereal diseases would affect 350,000 soldiers, which would equate to eliminating two armed divisions for an entire year. The cost of these losses, which would amount to about $34 million at the time, made research for STD treatments particularly urgent.
The first field trials driven by this push for new developments in STD treatment and preventative measures were the Terre Haute prison experiments from 1943 to 1944, which were conducted and supported by many of the same individuals who would go on to participate in the Guatemalan syphilis experiments only a few years later.
The goal of this experiment was to find a more suitable STD prophylaxis by infecting human subjects recruited from prison populations with gonorrhea. Though at first the idea of using human subjects was controversial, the support of Thomas Parran and Colonel John A. Rodgers, Executive Officer of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, enabled John F. Mahoney and Cassius J. Van Slyke to begin implementing the experiments. John Cutler, a young associate of Mahoney, helped conduct the experiments, and went on to lead the Guatemala syphilis experiments.
The experiments in Terre Haute were the precursor for the Guatemalan experiments. It was the first to demonstrate how earnestly military leaders pushed for new developments to combat STDs and their willingness to infect human subjects. It also explained why the study clinicians would choose Guatemala: to avoid the ethical constraints related to individual consent, other adverse legal consequences, and bad publicity.