U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

[evanovitch]

Government researchers infected patients with syphilis, gonorrhea without their consent in the 1940s

U.S. government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, <span style="font-weight: bold">including institutionalized mental patients, </span>with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study.</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment.</span>

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service.

&quot;The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical,&quot; according to the joint statement from Clinton and Sebelius. &quot;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. We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices.&quot;

[R_C]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

&quot;Project MKULTRA was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects.

The published evidence indicates that Project MKULTRA involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate individual mental states and alter brain function, including the surreptitious administration of drugs and other chemicals, sensory deprivation, isolation, and verbal and sexual abuse.

The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an &quot;extensive testing and experimentation&quot; program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens &quot;at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign.&quot;

Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent. In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.

Forty-four American colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like including Sandoz (currently Novartis) and Eli Lilly &amp; Co., 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and three prisons are known to have participated in MKULTRA.


Because most MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MKULTRA and related CIA programs.&quot;

[Xavier]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

What a disgusting thing to do. This was sick.

[Wahalla]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

This is disturbing.. The great and the good deciding what to do.. and the reporting that only the US role...The guatemalan goverment role ???

Note the researchers gave maleria treatment in exchange for access..that is . there is more to come from this story.. the link of aid to the desperate...

I keep thinking what did the soviets and the french do and have never been exposed...

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

quote=Wahalla]This is disturbing.. The great and the good deciding what to do.. and the reporting that only the US role...The guatemalan goverment role ???

Note the researchers gave maleria treatment in exchange for access..that is . there is more to come from this story.. the link of aid to the desperate...

I keep thinking what did the soviets and the french do and have never been exposed... [/quote]What Guatemalan government role?
During That period the governments of That could try as was the case of wall Spanish speaking Latin American countries except Mexico were colonies of the US. Their governments were selected by the united fruit co,standard fruit company, dole corp.

These multinational corporations with themight of the us military forced the country to allow these corporations at different times to utilize their most fertile lands to produce one crop, bananas for these corporations using their population as near slave labour.
The country's only source of taxes was earned from bananas.

Do I need to be more detailed?
What government?

Who did tey represent?

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Xavier</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What a disgusting thing to do. This was sick. </div></div>

I saw the details of a program done by the us government using Mico college students during the 50s too.

It was not that dangerous, but it opened my eyes about. The means the are willing to use to experiment on innocent people without them being aware about its real goal.
I. Notice that the jamaican government was recently involved in one such socalled health experiment too.
I think they were getting resistance from the people

[Wahalla]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

So you dont beleive that the Gutamalan govemrment knew no details ?

[Wahalla]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

I thought about this a moment and something did not seem quite fit in my illogical mind..

in my mind.... then it clicked Arbenz was the Defense minister in the govermetn at the time. .The Most famous Guatemalan, e been over thrown by Dulles won an election in Guetamala in 51..So the President of Guatemalan was Arevelo....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Ar%C3%A9valo

The president at the time was Arevelo.. not famous but he was one of the few democtats in Central america at the time.. who survived multiple coup attempts.. (These tend not to be remembered as they failed.. Just showing my point that the CIA was ineffective). He was a socialist and considered a Kamunist by the US.......

<span style="color: #FF0000">my question is did a goverment of Guratemala know that this was going on, did their health ministry know ????? </span> this is a govermetn containing Arbenz and Arevelo... This was not a dictatorship from the 30's.. it was during one of the few periods of reform in Central America.


It is worth noting that the nuremberg rules on medical ethics had not been developed.. and this was two years post the Nazi horror... I would like to find out who sponsored this.. not just the doctor but the organisaton.. My undrstanding it was an exchange of maleria treatment... Let me be clear this is horrible.. but it is to a new low and demonstrates the way yanki see the world out side the united states. The rest of the world it seems is entitled to standard...


It was the same Tuskeggee doctor I beleive.. This was worse he infected the heathly!!!!!. First yankis

[johnnycakes]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

Wow, what a terrible thing to do but Latin America was and has been treated as colonies of the United States for most of the 20th century These experiments pale in their brutality to what followed when the United States overthrew the elected government of Guatemala in the 50's and the decades following that coup.

The following is the chapter on Guatemala from William Blum's book &quot;Killing Hope&quot; which details U.S. and CIA interventions since WWII.

I know most people will not read it because it is too long but do give it a try if just to see that the STD experiments are just the tip of a very big iceberg.

http://killinghope.org/bblum6/guat3.htm

Here's an excerpt:
In the period October 1966 to March 1968, Amnesty
International estimated, somewhere between 3,000 and 8,000
Guatemalans were killed by the police, the military, right-wing
&quot;death squads&quot; (often the police or military in civilian clothes,
carrying out atrocities too bloody for the government to claim
credit for), and assorted groups of civilian anti-communist
vigilantes. By 1972, the number of their victims was estimated
at 13,000. Four years later the count exceeded 20,000, murdered
or disappeared without a trace.
Anyone attempting to organize a union or other undertaking
to improve the lot of the peasants, or simply suspected of being
in support of the guerrillas, was subject ... unknown armed men
broke into their homes and dragged them away to unknown places
... their tortured or mutilated or burned bodies found buried in
a mass grave, or floating in plastic bags in a lake or river, or
lying beside the road, hands tied behind the back ... bodies
dropped into the Pacific from airplanes. In the Gual n
area, it was said, no one fished any more; too many corpses were
caught in the nets ... decapitated corpses, or castrated, or
pins stuck in the eyes ... a village rounded up, suspected of
supplying the guerrillas with men or food or information, all
adult males takenaway in front of their families, never to be
seen again ... or everyone massacred, the village bulldozed
over to cover the traces ... seldom were the victims actual
members of a guerrilla band.
One method of torture consisted of putting a hood filled
with insecticide over the head of the victim; there was also
electric shock -- to the genital area is the most effective; in
those days it was administered by using military field telephones
hooked up to small generators; the United States supplied the
equipment and the instructions for use to several countries,
including South Vietnam where the large-scale counter-insurgency
operation was producing new methods and devices for extracting
information from uncooperative prisoners; some of these
techniques were finding their way to Latin America.{11}
The Green Berets taught their Guatemalan trainees various
methods of &quot;interrogation&quot;, but they were not solely classroom
warriors. Their presence in the countryside was reported
frequently, accompanying Guatemalan soldiers into battle areas;
the line separating the advisory role from the combat role is
often a matter of public relations.

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So you dont beleive that the Gutamalan govemrment knew no details ? </div></div>the guatamalan government authorized it.
but in the state the medical standards requires not Just a signature of consent but .. 'informed vonse'.
That cannot be ascertained at this stage.
but it really is a matter if What power a colonial surrogate have against the colonial power.
This was up to 1948 or Just before the period you covered.

[Wahalla]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dr.Dudd</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So you dont beleive that the Gutamalan govemrment knew no details ? </div></div>the guatamalan government authorized it.
but in the state the medical standards requires not Just a signature of consent but .. 'informed vonse'.
That cannot be ascertained at this stage.
but it really is a matter if What power a colonial surrogate have against the colonial power.
This was up to 1948 or Just before the period you covered. </div></div>

My understanding is that the experiment began in 46-48.... while this reformist goverment is in place.... One that is held in high estime to this time. Left wing Gurrillas in Guetemala were indoctrinated as the ideal for goverment..

What was going on before was it simply a continouation of a pre existing program that got rolled over ?

Again this was no surrogate government... This was a reforming government.. one that alot of left wing liberationists admired....including fidel and che...Arbenz regime was a continuation of this reformist goverment....

What I notice is that the yankis did it ... not the liberal land reforming goverment who happened to be in power...

Then my question does the Guatemalan authorities bear some responsibility ??????? . This was a government that was opposed by the US state department.. One which replaced a military dicatorship by elections.. a &quot;moral&quot; socialist who rejected marxism materialism....

Here is exactly what happens all the time... Goverments creat a bogey man to deflect from their own responsibilities.. and their own actions.. The Aver

Let me be clear once more.. What the US did was imoral.. it was akin to the Nazi experiments.. But did the Gutamalan goverment knowing participate in this ?????

[foolya]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So you dont beleive that the Gutamalan govemrment knew no details ? </div></div>


Keep in mind that in those days the government were all white as JA.

[Wahalla]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: foolya</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So you dont beleive that the Gutamalan govemrment knew no details ? </div></div>


Keep in mind that in those days the government were all white as JA. </div></div>


Yep.. and the Castro is a white man... and the son of a rich land owner as well....

This is the biography of Juan José; Aré;valo

The administration of the Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo (1904-1990) was marked by significant social welfare legislation, Communist infiltration of labor unions, and friction with the United States.
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Juan José Arévalo was born Sept. 10, 1904, in Taxisco to Mariano Arévalo, a farmer and cattle rancher, and Elena Bermejo, a schoolteacher. His early schooling was in Guatemala City; later he won an Argentine government scholarship to study at the University of La Plata, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1934. While in Argentina he married Elisa Martinez, a teacher. After obtaining his degree he became a minor official in the Guatemalan ministry of education, traveled in Europe, and eventually returned to Argentina, where he taught in several universities and wrote books on pedagogy.
When a revolution in 1944 toppled President Jorge Ubico, Arévalo returned to Guatemala and became a presidential candidate for the revolutionary parties. Although Arévalo had gained an international reputation through his writings, he was relatively unknown in Guatemala; thus there were few personal objections. This, together with his civilian, middle-class rural background, professional reputation, youthfulness, and imposing appearance, made his candidacy more acceptable. He overwhelmingly won the election of December 1944.
Beginnings of Reform

A new constitution went into effect on March 13, 1945, and Arévalo's six-year term began two days later. The new president's policy was what he called &quot;spiritual socialism,&quot; an ill-defined doctrine of psychological and moral liberation. He was not a &quot;materialistic socialist&quot;; he did not think that man was &quot;primarily stomach.&quot; His socialism did not involve redistribution of material goods to equalize men who were economically different. He wanted to give every citizen not only the superficial right to vote but &quot;the fundamental right of living in peace with his own conscience, with his family, with his goods, with his destiny.&quot;
During the first years of Arévalo's administration, legislation included a social security law, a labor code, and the Institute for the Development of Production as well as statutes regulating banking and monetary practices and the national airlines. During the latter half of the term, political difficulties caused by disunity within ranks of Arévalo supporters and the presidential ambitions of Col. Francisco Javier Arana, chief of the armed forces, plagued the government. Throughout his presidency Arévalo's attitude toward communism was ambiguous. Some leading Guatemalan Communists were kept out of the country and the party was not allowed to register as an official political organization, but Communist infiltration of labor unions and of other political parties was significant. Arévalo's relations with the United States were strained, both because he refused to persecute Communist sympathizers and because his attempts at labor reform interfered with huge American fruit-growing interests in Guatemala. His support for exiled leaders from Caribbean dictatorships was also viewed with suspicion by the State Department.
Diplomat and Author

Leaving office in 1951, Arévalo became an ambassador at large, traveling in Latin America and Europe. After the revolution of 1954, which ousted President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, Arévalo went into exile and wrote books extremely critical of United States policy in Latin America. Prior to the scheduled 1963 presidential election, Arévalo announced his intention to run and clandestinely returned to Guatemala, but after the army revolution removing President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, he quietly left the country; the election was postponed. While still in exile Arévalo was appointed ambassador to Chile in January 1969. From 1970 to 1972 he served as ambassador to France.
Arévalo died in Guatemala City on October 6, 1990.
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Further Reading on Juan José; Aré;valo

Two of Arévalo's books criticizing United States policy in Latin America have been translated into English: Antikommunism (sic) in Latin America (1959; trans. 1963) and The Shark and the Sardines (1961; trans. 1961). Brief accounts of Arévalo's background and presidency appear in K.H. Silvert, A Study in Government: Guatemala (1954); Robert J. Alexander, Communism in Latin America (1957); and Ronald M. Schneider, Communism in Guatemala: 1944-1954 (1958). See also Gleijeses, Piero, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-54 (Princeton University Press, 1991); Handy, Jim, Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala, 1944-54 (North Carolina, 1994); Journal of Latin American Studies: Juan Jose Arévalo and the Caribbean Legion by Piero Gleijeses (February 1989); and Nyrop, Richard F., ed., Guatemala: A Country Study (Federal Research Division, 1983).
Encyclopedia of World Biography. Copyright 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Ja. Jewel]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

All of these acts are disgusting &amp; inexcusable!! ......makes you wonder what else the US govt. has done that has been covered up for years!

[johnnycakes]

Re: U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

Here you go Ja.Jewel,

Go to this link and read the Introduction and the few chapters that are free.
Buy and read the book if you REALLY want to know what the United States has done to the world since WWII.
I don't think you really want to know.

http://killinghope.org/