U.S. apologizes for syphilis experiment in Guatemala

The United States apologized Friday for an experiment in the 1940s in which government researchers deliberately infected Guatemalan prison inmates, women and mental patients with syphilis.

In the experiment, aimed at testing the then-new drug penicillin, inmates were infected by prostitutes and later treated with the antibiotic.

FOR THE RECORD:
Syphilis experiment: An article in the Oct. 2 Section A about a U.S. government apology for a 1940s experiment in which government researchers infected Guatemalan prisoners, women and mental patients with syphilis stated that the infamous Tuskegee study on black American men occurred in the 1960s. The Tuskegee experiment ran from 1932 to 1972. —

“The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

“Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices,” the statement said.

Guatemala condemned the experiments and said it would study whether there were grounds to take the case to an international court.

“President Alvaro Colom considers these experiments crimes against humanity and Guatemala reserves the right to denounce them in an international court,” said a government statement, which also announced the creation of a commission to investigate the matter.

Guatemalan human rights activists called for the victims’ families to be compensated, but a U.S. official said it was not clear whether there would be any compensation.

President Obama called Colom to offer his personal apology for what had happened, a White House spokesman said.

The experiment, which echoed the infamous 1960s Tuskegee study on black American men who were deliberately left untreated for syphilis, was uncovered by Susan Reverby, a professor of women’s studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Reverby found out about it this year while following up on a book about Tuskegee, and informed the U.S. government before she published her findings — which is unusual for researcher.

“In addition to the penitentiary, the studies took place in an insane asylum and an army barracks,” Reverby said.

“In total, 696 men and women were exposed to the disease and then offered penicillin. The studies went on until 1948 and the records suggest that, despite intentions, not everyone was probably cured,” she said in a statement.

Her findings, to be published in January in the Journal of Policy History, link the Tuskegee and Guatemalan studies.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., said regulations today prohibit such “risky and unethical” research.