What Do You Think?

[loosebelly]

Remember the US government would NEVER do anything immoral.

If you believe that, try thinking about the fact that this experiment went on for several decades. Before it finally got stopped because of it being reported/leaked to the press.

How many other experiments do you think happened that we know nothing about? And think about how easy it is to experiment on a population that overly trusts the government.

Still want to get that flu shot?

= = = =

copied from:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101001/hl_yblog_upshot/u-s-apologizes-to-guatemalans-for-secret-std-experiments


U.S. apologizes to Guatemalans for secret STD experiments
By Brett Michael Dykes
Oct 1 2010


U.S. scientific researchers infected hundreds of Guatemalan mental patients with sexually transmitted diseases from 1946 to 1948 -- a practice that only came recently to light thanks to the work of an academic researcher. On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a formal apology to the Central American nation, and to Guatemalan residents of the United States.

"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," said Clinton and Sebelius in a joint statement. "We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."

The discovery of the long-ago experiments stems from another, far better known episode of federal tampering with test subjects to study sexually transmitted diseases: the long-running "Tuskegee experiment," studying 399 poor black men from Macon County, Ala., who had been diagnosed with syphilis but never informed of their condition. Federal scientists simply told the men they had "bad blood" and researchers compiled a four-decades-long study monitoring "untreated syphilis in the male Negro." Researchers never treated the illness over its usually fatal course, even after the simple remedy of penicillin was shown to be an effective syphilis treatment; participants received only free meals and medical exams, together with federal funding of their funeral expenses after they died. The study began in 1932, continuing right through to 1972, when it was exposed in media reports.

One of the better-known experts on the Tuskegee scandal is Susan Reverby, a professor of women's and gender studies at Wellesley College who has published two books on the subject. As she was researching her most recent book, Reverby learned of the Guatemalan project, in which researchers from the U.S. Public Health Service conducted experiments on 696 male and female patients housed at Guatemala's National Mental Health Hospital. The scientists injected the patients with gonorrhea and syphilis -- and even encouraged many of them to pass the disease on to others.

"It was done in conjunction with the Guatemalan government," Reverby told The Upshot in a phone interview Friday morning. "They had permission from the Guatemalan government."

Reverby explained that she learned of the Guatemala study purely by accident.

[loosebelly]

another version of the story.

“U.S. officials are beginning two investigations to uncover exactly what happened and make sure today's rules are adequate.”

Yet the question remains are they investigation and checking rules to make sure experiments of this type do not happen again or to make sure that records and notes are more secure so that there will be no public proof that experiments happened?


copied from:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101001/ap_on_re_us/us_syphilis_experiment

US apologizes for 1940s STD study in Guatemala
AP
– Fri Oct 1, 12:38 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government apologized to Guatemala Friday for a study 60 years ago in which American scientists deliberately infected prisoners in that country with syphilis.

The 1946 experiment was unearthed by a Wellesley College medical historian. It apparently was conducted to test the effectiveness of penicillin, which was relatively new then, in treating sexually transmitted diseases.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said they were, in their words, "outraged that such reprehensible research could could have occurred under the guise of public health."

Strict regulations today would prohibit such medical research. U.S. officials are beginning two investigations to uncover exactly what happened and make sure today's rules are adequate.