US apologizes for 1940s Guatemala Syphilis experiments
U.S. officials have apologized for shockingly immoral experiments done on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s, in an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin in treating syphilis.
From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalan prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers, as part of the experiment. In some instances, syphilis-infected prostitutes were paid to sleep with prisoners, as part of the testing.
Susan Reverby is responsible for publicly exposing the details of this medical testing. A medical historian, professor at Wellesley College and author of Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy, Reverby was doing research about the Tuskegee study (in which black American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated and observed for decades) when she came across the unpublished work of Dr. John C. Cutler, who led the experiment in Guatemala. Cutler also had an important role in the Tuskegee study. Reverby says, “As with Tuskegee, [the Guatemalan syphilis experiment’s] lessons ended up being about morality.”
Dr. Art Caplan, the Sydney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, also joins us as well to discuss how the revelation of this experiment can affect the future of bioethics in the United States.
The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.
When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.