US apologises for Guatemalan STD tests

The United States apologised on Friday for funding a study in which hundreds of Guatemalans were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhoea in the 1940s. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the study was cleary unethical and launched a thorough investigation into the study.

Reuters

Some 15,000 people took part in the study between 1946 and 1948. They were encouraged to pass on sexually transmitted diseases, and some who contracted syphilis were not treated.

The researchers did not inform the participants, some of whom were mental patients, of the aims of the study. At least one person died during the research, but it is not clear whether that was as a direct result of the experiments.

The experiments involved infecting prostitutes with gonorrhoea and syphilis and then allowing them to have unprotected sex with soldiers and prisoners.

“Although these events happened more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health,” said Clinton and Sebelius.

The study, which was designed to discover inoculations for sexually transmitted diseases, was funded with a grant from the US National Institutes of Health.