Venezuela to expel US Embassy official

[Judi Lynn]

42. 83 Died in U.S.-Guatemala Syphilis Experiments:

83 Died in U.S.-Guatemala Syphilis Experiments: “We’re talking about intentional deception.”
By: Jeff Kaye Monday August 29, 2011 7:41 pm

It made headlines when historian Susan M. Reverby of Wellesley College discovered a decades-old program run from by the U.S. Public Health Service’s studies in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. That’s because the researchers deliberately inoculated subjects with syphilis in order to study sexually transmitted disease, and they did so without informed consent for the procedure.

Subjects were “not told what the purpose of the research was nor were they warned of its potentially fatal consequences.” Furthermore, “U.S. government researchers must have known they were contravening ethical standards by deliberately infecting mental patients with syphilis.”

The researchers, led by U.S. doctor John Cutler, who had also been involved in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments on African-American men that ran from 1932 to 1972, utilized mental patients, prostitutes, prisoners and soldiers as their guinea pigs. Today, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues issued their findings of a study undertaken in the aftermath of the scandal.

According to news reports, at least 83 Guatemalans died after being infected with both spyhilis and gonorrhea. Over 1,300 were exposed to the venereal diseases.

More:
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/08/29/83-died-in-u-s-guatemala-syphilis-experiments-we%E2%80%99re-talking-about-intentional-deception/

That's when they were still in the "learning" mode.