Clintons Apologize for Tuskegee Experiment and Syphillis to Guatemalans

As sophisticated as some medical studies may be in the United States, the country has a dark past in others. The Clintons and President Barack Obama are apologizing for it too, in May 1997 and Friday, Oct. 1, of this year.

With the assistance of Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a public apology for an NIH study completed from 1946 to 1948 to see if penicillin could cure sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Given to prisoners and mental institution patients in Guatemala, the unknowing patients ended up with gonorrhea and syphilis, and the tests came back with no useful results.

"We are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," they said, according to a Yahoo! News report via Associated Press. "The sexually transmitted disease inoculation study conducted from 1946-1948 in Guatemala was clearly unethical. 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."

AP reported that Clinton called Alvaro Colom, Guatemala's president, on Thurs., Sept. 30, and Pres. Obama called on Friday to apologize as well.

Although time has passed, the wounds from the apology remind U.S. citizens of another study, the Tuskegee experiment, which was another study from unknowing patients. According to PBS, the study went on from 1932 to 1972. There were 399 men with syphilis, and a control group of 201 men without the disease, but the 399 men didn't know what they had. They were told they were being treated for "bad blood."

Penicillin resurfaced again as a cure for syphillis, not STDs. Although the United States Health Service started the study in 1930 and was supposed to run for only six months, the study continued well after a cure was found in 1947. Funding money ran out two years after the Health Service started, and the Health Service went from experimenting on six southern counties to one, Macon County in Alabama.

Signs were posted about help for "bad blood," but it didn't specify what the medicine would be a cure for, only that it was free, according to PBS. Black men signed up in hopes of improving their health without knowing this medicine would make it worse.

In 1974, a $10 million lawsuit was won to compensate eight survivors from the experiment being run in Washington, but an apology was also requested. Almost two decades later, they got that apology.

Sources:
"An apology 65 years late" (PBS)
"US apologizes for '40s syphilis study in Guatemala" (Associated Press)
"U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments" (MSNBC)