Inquiry into US STD experiment launched
The Guatemalan government has formed a committee to investigate how US scientists deliberately infected hundreds of Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases. Officials say the goal of the committee is to determine who had knowledge of the study and who the victims were. The study, conducted by US public healthcare researchers from 1946 to 1948, deliberately infected about 1,500 Guatemalan prisoners, institutionalized mental patients, and prostitutes with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including syphilis and gonorrhea, without the patients' knowledge or permission.
The goal was to test the effectiveness of penicillin against STDs.
Evidence of the experiment was uncovered by Susan M. Reverby, a professor of history and women's studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, who posted the information on her website. The Guatemalan medical association compared the experiments to those conducted by Nazi Germany. On Friday, US President Barack Obama apologized to his Guatemalan counterpart Alvaro Colom for the experiments. During the time of the experiments, the United States exerted a powerful influence over Guatemala, largely to protect the interests of the US-based United Fruit Company, now known as Chiquita.