U.S. medical tests may have infected up to 2,500 Guatemalans with STDs

[News_Editor]

U.S. medical tests may have infected up to 2,500 Guatemalans with STDs

2011-09-02 04:11:25 GMT+7 (ICT)

GUATEMALA CITY (BNO NEWS) -- The number of Guatemalan people infected with sexually transmitted diseases as part of a U.S. medical experiment in the 1940s may be as high as 2,500, the Medical Association of Guatemala told the BBC on Thursday.

On Monday, the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues released a report which stated that some 5,500 Guatemalans were involved in U.S. medical research between 1946 and 1948. The research was carried out to study the effects of penicillin with a view to applying the results on U.S. troops stationed around the world.

According to the report, an estimated 1,300 people, prisoners, psychiatric patients and sex workers among them, were deliberately infected without their knowledge with syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases such as chancroid.

Accordingly, only 700 received some sort of treatment and at least 83 of the 5,500 subjects had died by the end of 1953. However, the commission's report did not establish if their death was caused directly by the deliberate infections.

On Thursday, Medical Association of Guatemala president Carlos Mejía told the BBC that the number of people infected could be as high as 2,500 after having reviewed the historical archives in which these experiments are cited.

Mejía, a member of the commission established by the Guatemalan government to investigate the experiments, said that concentrations of bacteria were injected into the eyes, the central nervous system and male genitals while adding that this behavior was very similar to that of the scientists in Nazi Germany.

"It took place in the context in which they [the United States] were judging the German doctors who had been experimenting with typhus and malaria on prisoners of war. The Nazis used Poles, Russians and Jews, while the Americans made almost the same use of Guatemalans," he told the BBC.

Mejía further stated that there was enough evidence to conclude both countries' authorities collaborated at the time of the tests. At least nine Guatemalan doctors participated in these experiments, Mejía revealed. Eight of them have already died but authorities still do not know the whereabouts of the ninth doctor, who would now be over 90 years old, he added.

Guatemalan vice president Rafael Espada said the government would offer public apologies to its people for the participation of national doctors in the medical experiments carried out in the 1940s.

Although it has been over 60 years, Guatemalans could still be suffering the consequences of the tests. "We've begun to study the children of the people who were infected. While they do not present syphilis symptoms, the disease is active in them," Mejía said.

Meanwhile, two law firms have initiated a legal process against the U.S. government for health problems resulting from the experiments.

President Barack Obama set up the Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues after history researcher Susan M. Reverby published a study in 2010 which shed light on the medical experiments conducted by the United States during the 1940s.

The Guatemalan commission established to investigate the experiments is expected to deliver a complete report in October.

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