U.S. apologizes for syphilis experiment in Guatemala

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6903RZ20101001

by georgecmu • 16 years ago

33 22 16 years ago

ciupicri• 16 years ago

This reminds me of doctor Mengele[1].

LE: I've only said that it reminds me, not that it's the (exactly) same thing. Making other people to suffer in "the name of science" is at least arguable.

LE2: Also, the experiments took place at almost the same time (only a couple of years difference).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

sophacles2• 16 years ago

While intentionally infecting unknowing people with a disease is not cool, the motive of "we know this works, we just need an full effectiveness study" is very very very different from "they are not people, we can do random surgery on children to see what happens".

I think your reaction is quite dramatic, intellectually dishonest, and worthy of a lot of contempt.

earl2• 16 years ago

Bullshit.

If this really was no big deal, if we really hard regarded Guatemalens as people, it could have been done here at home in the US on white people. Instead, it was performed on people who didn't matter -- just like the Tuskegee experiments. The difference here between the US and Mengele is one of degree, not kind.

js2• 16 years ago

Just so we're clear: not even close. The researchers who performed these syphilis experiments were profoundly misguided. But, ultimately they likely had good intentions at heart. Note that this in no way justifies their actions.

Mengele was so sick I won't even attempt to summarize what's written on that wikipedia page.

This is more than just a matter of degree. Please be more careful with your comparisons.

lawrence• 16 years ago

Any time I start to get too trusting of people / government, or too dismissive of conspiracy theorists, I read something like this.

This is pretty evil.

tvon• 16 years ago

The U.S. also overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1954.

jesseendahl• 16 years ago

For those of you who are curious, here's more info on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%C3%A9tat

"The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the democratically-elected President of Guatemala."

forinti• 16 years ago

Couldn't they test the drug on people already infected??

sprout• 16 years ago

If you read the article, they were interested in whether or not Syphilis could be prevented using penicillin. Nowadays we take it for granted that antibiotics are not ever to be used for prevention, but they were very much in a formative era.

dennisgorelik• 16 years ago

Did it help to move medicine science forward?

mcantelon• 16 years ago

Is it possible to move medicine forward without deliberately infecting people?

icegreentea2• 16 years ago

They're different questions. Seeing the Mengele reference above, one interesting ethical question pops up in cases like this. Do you use the data? One side says that by doing so, it legitimizes whatever was done. The other side says that not using it is just throwing away all the suffering that happened anyways.

Anyhow, it's one of those positions that you either waver back and worth on, or quickly find a position, and then never really move away from. For that reason, I rather avoid that actual discussion. Instead, I will point out that a great deal of current knowledge of how humans react in extreme cold is still based or built on experiments conducted in concentration camps.

So really, you can't dismiss the question of 'was useful data gained" by just saying "it was gained unethically".

bradgessler• 16 years ago

Do the ends justify the means?

No.

mmaro• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_Un...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14...

I wish most of the incidents linked to primary sources, but assume X% are lies and it's still awful.

ciscoriordan• 16 years ago

The (deceased) doctor behind this has left a portion of his estate to Pitt, something they used to flaunt on their website. They've yanked the relevant pages in the last few days:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QbyoXXj...

http://www.pitt.planyourlegacy.org/donor-cutler.php

gojomo• 16 years ago

Thought exercise: what will our governments be apologizing for 60-70 years from today?

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

If you had told random people in the 1950s and 1960s that this was happening, you would have been branded a nutcase.

What are the "nutcases" telling us now, that we will find out about 50 years on?

meelash• 16 years ago

Guys. Guys. Stop believing these conspiracy theorists. This story is craaaaaaaaazy.

U.S. apologizes for syphilis experiment in Guatemala

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