|
The syphilis experiments in Guatemala were United States-led human experiments conducted in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948, during the administration of President Truman and President Juan José Arévalo with the cooperation of some Guatemalan health ministries and officials.〔 Doctors infected soldiers, prostitutes, prisoners and mental patients with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, without the informed consent of the subjects, and treated most subjects with antibiotics. This resulted in at least 83 deaths. In October 2010, the U.S. formally apologized to Guatemala for conducting these experiments. ==Experiments== The experiments were led by United States Public Health Service physician John Charles Cutler, who later took part in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. In archived documents, Dr. Thomas Parran, Jr., the U.S. Surgeon General at the time of the experiments, acknowledged that the Guatemalan work could not be done domestically, and details were hidden from Guatemalan officials. The experiments were funded by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Pan American Sanitary Bureau and involved multiple Guatemalan government ministries.〔 A total of about 1500 study subjects were involved although the findings were never published.〔 Information about these experiments was uncovered by Professor Susan Mokotoff Reverby of Wellesley College. Reverby found the documents in 2005 while researching the Tuskegee syphilis study, in Cutler's archived papers, and shared her findings with United States government officials.〔 While the Tuskegee experiment followed the natural progression of syphilis in those already infected, in Guatemala doctors deliberately infected healthy people with the diseases, some of which can be fatal if untreated. The goal of the study seems to have been to determine the effect of penicillin in the prevention and treatment of venereal diseases. The researchers paid prostitutes infected with syphilis to have sex with prisoners and some subjects were infected by directly inoculating them with the bacterium.〔 Through intentional exposure to gonorrhea, syphilis, and chancroid, a total of 1,308 people were involved in the experiments. Of that group, with an age range of 10-72, 678 (52%) individuals can be said to have received a form of treatment.〔''(Ethically Impossible: STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 )'', Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, published 2011-09-13, accessed 2015-10-23, p.41〕 Francis Collins, the NIH director at the time of the revelations, called the experiments "a dark chapter in history of medicine" and commented that modern rules prohibit conducting human subject research without informed consent. The study appears to have ended in 1948, partly because of medical “gossip” about the work, and partly because penicillin was very costly. However, some follow-up laboratory testing and patient observation continued until the early 1950s. Additionally, similar research was also conducted on the transmission and prophylaxis of gonorrhea and chancroid.〔("Findings from a CDC Report on the 1946-1948 U.S. Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Inoculation Study" ), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 30 September 2010〕 The subjects for all of the STD experiments consisted of female sex workers, prisoners, soldiers, and mental hospital patients; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that "the design and conduct of the studies was unethical in many respects, including deliberate exposure of subjects to known serious health threats, lack of knowledge of and consent for experimental procedures by study subjects, and the use of highly vulnerable populations."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Guatemala syphilis experiment」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|