Did You Know … U.S. Researchers Purposely Infected Guatemalans With Syphilis and Gonorrhea?

One of the researchers had previously worked on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. – Courtesy photo

In the 1940s members of the Guatemalan military were secretly and intentionally infected with gonorrhea by American researchers in a study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Other groups, mental patients and prisoners among them, were exposed to syphilis and chancroid. In 2010, then-Secretary of State Clinton issued a public apology to the Guatemalan government for violating its citizens’ human rights. According to Slate, “Of the 1,308 subjects known to have been exposed to an STD, only 678 were documented to receive treatment.” This past January, a federal judge ruled that Johns Hopkins University, Rockefeller Foundation, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co will face a $1 billion lawsuit over their involvement in the government experiment.

Sources: slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/02/guatemala_syphilis_experiments_worse_than_tuskegee.html

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