A news report being broadcast on all major networks:
Washington — The United States apologized Friday for a 1946-1948 research study in which people in Guatemala were intentionally infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
A statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called the action “reprehensible.”
“We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices,” the joint statement said. “The conduct exhibited during the study does not represent the values of the United States, or our commitment to human dignity and great respect for the people of Guatemala.”
President Barack Obama called his Guatemalan counterpart Friday “offering profound apologies and asking pardon for the deeds of the 1940s,” President Alvaro Colom told CNN en Espanol in a telephone interview from Guatemala City.
“Though it happened 64 years ago, it really is a profound violation of human rights,” said Colom, who said the report took him by surprise.
Clinton called him on Thursday, he said. “She too offered her apologies,” he said, adding that she told him she was ashamed the United States had been involved in the matter.
Lest you think that this only happened in your parents (or grandparents) times, I suggest that you read up on the Tuskegee experiment in Alabama.
The Tuskegee syphilis experiment (also known as the Tuskegee syphilis study or Public Health Service syphilis study) was a clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, by the U.S. Public Health Service. Investigators recruited 399 impoverished African-American sharecroppers with syphilis for research related to the natural progression of the untreated disease.
The Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began the study in 1932. Nearly 400 poor black men with syphilis from Macon County, Ala., were enrolled in the study. For participating in the study, the men were given free medical exams, free meals and free burial insurance. They were never told they had syphilis, nor were they ever treated for it. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the men were told they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term used to describe several illnesses, including syphilis, anemia and fatigue.
The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards, primarily because researchers failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease. Revelation of study failures led to major changes in U.S. law and regulation on the protection of participants in clinical studies. Now studies require informed consent (with exceptions possible for U.S. Federal agencies which can be kept secret by Executive Order), communication of diagnosis, and accurate reporting of test results.
I was in the Army in 1972. That study was something that was still going on when I was an adult. It was the counterpart of the Guatemalan experiment. I am glad that both the President and the Secretary of State have apologized.
At the risk of seeming brutally cynical, if some conservatives fear that illegal immigrants are going to destroy this great country now it would appear that Latin Americans have every reason to fear that the United States has viewed them as nothing more than guinea pigs for their own use in experiments. I tend to be conservative but the idea that Obama should stop apologizing for what America has done in the past DOES have limits. This is at least one place where ANY President should be willing to apologize on behalf of the United States for what was done. I suppose some fellow conservatives will note the United States did this under a Democratic president and tell other people to do the math. 🙁
Wel I love US and I am bless to know a lot a good american people; but if I see and read what the US was doing all over the world then I think it would’t be enough time to apologize for the bad things they were doing to some countries; they do 10 good things and at the same time they are busy doing other 20 bad things.