3 months ago President Obama ordered investigations into a 1940s researcher who injected Guatemalan prisoners & soldiers with syphilis.
The report was unpublished and came to light by Susan Reverby of Wellesley College.
The President has already issued an apology to the Guatemalan people when the report first came to light.
John Cutler is the researcher in question. He was a public health medical officer. His study was conducted for 2 years in the mid 40s. He exposed prostitutes that already had syphilis or gonorrhea to the Guatemalan prisoners.
There were around 1,500 subjects in this study, none of who were aware of the study or asked for their consent. During the study it was confirmed that syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD). They also tried infecting the prisoners in other ways to see if the disease could be transmitted that way.
Amy Gutman is overseeing the investigations. She is the Chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
There was a similar investigation into a Tuskegee syphilis study where black men were studied from 1936 to 1972. The main difference that had to be cleared up was that these men were not “infected” with syphilis.
It made such a bang because during this time many of the African Americans could have been given Penicillin and been healed in early stages of having syphilis, but for the sake of the study they were not given Penicillin.
Penicillin is a syphilis treatment most stages of syphilis.
In New Brunswick, Canada, syphilis has been on the rise. Dr. Eilish Cleary, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said that the health officials have noticed a 10 time increase in cases from ’07 through ’10. The province has been running campaigns about sex education and STDs.
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