The Experiment is Finally Exposed
In 2005, Professor Susan Mokotoff Reverby of Wellesley College discovered evidence of this unfortunate period in scientific research history. She uncovered Cutler’s research while looking for information on his involvement in the infamous Tuskegee experiment for a book. Her work was initially reported by NBC News, and she posted a copy of an article she wrote on the subject that was later published in an academic journal. She also altered government officials to the findings in a speech in 2010.
Naturally, her findings prompted outrage in the United States and Guatemala. In 2011, the Guatemalan vice president, Rafael Estrada, said that the government wanted to make a formal apology to the people because local doctors were involved in the scandal. He also said that the nation wanted to share the tragedy with the entire world. The American President at the time, Barack Obama, set up the Commission after Reverby’s research came to light.
He apologized to the Guatemalan President, Alvaro Colom, and said the scandal was contrary to American values. The Commission released a report which concluded that the experiments involved basic violations of ethics. Seven plaintiffs filed a federal class action lawsuit against the U.S. Government in March 2011. They claimed damages for the Guatemalan experiments, but a judge threw out the case by saying the United States Government could not be held liable for actions that took place outside the country.
Another lawsuit was filed in April 2015, this time against the Rockefeller Foundation and Johns Hopkins University. A total of 774 plaintiffs claimed $1 billion worth of damages and took their case to the state court of Maryland. However, a judge dismissed this claim in 2016.
The Tuskegee Scandal
The Guatemalan syphilis scandal is by no means the only case of science ignoring the boundaries of ethics. The infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiment began in 1932; its goal was to observe the natural progression of the disease in African-American men in Alabama. The scientists used a ruse to get what they wanted; they told the subjects that they were benefiting from free health care.
The study involved African-American sharecroppers; 399 had the disease already, and 201 did not. The men received free meals, medical care, and funeral expenses but when the study lost funding for treatment, the study continued, and the researchers failed to tell their subjects that they would not be cured.
It was an exceedingly immoral study because none of the men were told that they had the disease nor were they given a cure; a particularly egregious breach of ethics since it became known that penicillin was a cure during the lengthy study. The experiment continued until 1972 when a whistleblower tipped off the press, and the study finally ended on November 16. By then, 28 men had died from the disease, 100 died from related complications, 40 of their wives caught syphilis, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.