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Latin America
Related: About this forumU.S. Hospital Sued For Deliberately Spreading STDs in Guatemala
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/U.S.-Hospital-Sued-For-Deliberately-Spreading-STDs-in-Guatemala-20150402-0021.htmlThe U.S. government in partnership with Johns Hopkins University ran a 1940s program that spread syphilis in the Central American country.
Over 750 plaintiffs filed a billion-dollar lawsuit on Wednesday against Johns Hopkins Hospital System Corp, for having deliberately infected people in Guatemala with sexually transmitted diseases without their consent in the late 1940s. They argued that John Hopkins and the Rockefeller Foundation both played a major role in the U.S. governmental program, as they exercised control over, supervised, supported, encouraged, participated in and directed the course of the experiments, said the suit.
The scientific team first infected Guatemalan sex workers with gonorrhea or syphilis, then let them have sex with soldiers and prison inmates in order to spread the disease, reported the Guardian.
Later, the researchers started infecting orphans, school children and psychiatric hospital patients without their consent. The program was meant to give researchers the opportunity to test additional methods of infecting humans with venereal disease easily hidden from public scrutiny.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the researchers and their hierarchy acknowledged the unethical nature of the study, as their correspondence shows.
When the scandal exploded in 2010, President Barack Obama apologized for the study, calling it clearly unethical.
Johns Hopkins's lawyer Robert Mathias denied any direct responsibility of the institution in the case, claiming that when doctors and scientists are acting on those committees they are acting on behalf of the federal government and not on the behalf of the research university or hospital they came from.
The Rockefeller Foundation followed a similar line, saying that it had no knowledge of the experiments.
A federal judge in 2012 rejected a lawsuit that Guatemalan victims had filed against eight U.S. state officials, ruling that they could not be held liable for actions committed in other countries.
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http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/U.S.-Hospital-Sued-For-Deliberately-Spreading-STDs-in-Guatemala-20150402-0021.html. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english
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U.S. Hospital Sued For Deliberately Spreading STDs in Guatemala (Original Post)
Demeter
Apr 2015
OP
Trillo
(9,154 posts)1. Might be off topic, but lawyer's argument is interesting,
Johns Hopkins's lawyer Robert Mathias denied any direct responsibility of the institution in the case, claiming that when doctors and scientists are acting on those committees they are acting on behalf of the federal government and not on the behalf of the research university or hospital they came from.
So, when Monsanto's lackeys are approving or disapproving or writing legislation, they are not acting in Monsanto's interest, but rather the governments?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)2. They are adults, it is transparent shuck and jive to say it was my job.
It didn't work at Nuremburg or for Eichmann and it ought not work for them. Human rights laws don't mean anything unless weasels like these are held accountable.
Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)3. How could they rationalize this to themselves? No excuse is possible.
No better than Dr. Josef Mengele, the Death Angel.
God knows how much suffering they inflicted upon unsuspecting human beings. Why would anyone EVER forgive them?
Physicians. Yeah, right.
Oh, but they did it because their government wanted them to do it. If they didn't, it would be unpatriotic. That takes care of the guilt, doesn't it?