profession
Panel deems 1940s U.S. experiments in Guatemala "unconscionable"
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Sept. 26, 2011
Researchers funded by the U.S. Public Health Service in the 1940s and 1950s exposed about 1,300 Guatemalan prisoners, psychiatric patients, soldiers and prostitutes to sexually transmitted diseases without obtaining consent, said a September report published by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
The report is the result of reviewing more than 125,000 pages of research documents from archives around the world. The experiments were first reported in October 2010 by Wellesley College medical historian Susan M. Reverby. Eighty-three of the research subjects died, though the bioethics commission could not determine whether the deaths were due to the experiments, which involved 5,500 Guatemalans.
"The Guatemala experiments involved unconscionable basic violations of ethics, even as judged against the researchers' own recognition of the requirements of the medical ethics of the day," said Amy Gutmann, PhD, chair of the bioethics commission. The report is available at the commission's website (link).
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/09/26/prbf0926.htm.
