You've heard of the experiments that were performed on residents - African-American residents only - of Tuskegee, Al. In 1932, the Public Health Service wanted to study the progression of syphilis. So, they recruited 399 sharecroppers who had syphilis, gave them free meals, free medical exams, free burial insurance but not free penicillin that would have probably cured their syphilis. Then, the scientists examined their subjects as they died. Criminal behavior?
The Public Health Services' need to study syphilis was apparently quite strong in those days. They decided that they couldn't get a large enough sample in this country. So, they seem to have made a deal with the Guatemalan government. There is a suspicion we gave them penicillin. In return we were able to give syphilis to 1,500 residents of their country. That's right. We intentionally gave syphilis to our fellowmen. But were they really our fellowmen? They were prisoners, inmates of mental institutions and soldiers of a backward country. How could they be? However, we did treat these people after we had infected them. Only one died so we must have done something right. Don't you agree?
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