Negative Quiddity: USA Infected Guatemalans but Refuses Restitution

Guatemalans were unknowingly and purposely exposed to sexually transmitted diseases by American researchers in the 1940s. A medical researcher discovered a research summary in 2009 and the facts are not in doubt.

Today the Obama administration argued that the Guatemalans and their descendants cannot sue the Unite States even though the research was shameful and unethical, because the government is protected by the Federal Tort Claims Act, even though President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius all apologized for the incident once the research was discovered in 2009.

Attorneys for the Guatemalans argue that the immunity argument contradicts the official apologies and violates the international prohibition against human medical experimentation without consent which the United States and other nations prosecuted at the Nuremberg trials following World War II.

The Associated Press reports:

"Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said he wants the U.S. government to compensate six survivors who have been identified. But the lawsuit also seeks compensation for heirs of all the victims who have died, some who have experienced their own health problems possibly linked to their parents' exposure, with the amount to be determined by a jury. Attorneys representing the Guatemalans first asked the Obama administration to set up an out-of-court claims process similar to those established in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the 9/11 terror attacks, but they got no response and filed the suit."The Guatemalan study was conducted by the predecessor organization of what is now the National Institutes of Health for the purpose of determining the effectiveness of different dosages of penicillin when used against different venereal diseases. The American research team bribed prison and mental institute officials in Guatemala by giving them refrigerators and other equipment and supplies as well as valuable medications for malaria and epilepsy.

The American government was involved in several immoral medical studies under the Truman administration in the 1940s. Particularly disgusting was the syphilis research on 600 black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which the subjects were not offered any treatment. Dr. John Cutler, the doctor running that study, also directed the Guatemalan research.

Summarized from:

http://news.yahoo.com/us-argues-immune-std-experiment-lawsuit-012929590.html