(dailynewyorknews) – The United States rejected the grounds for a lawsuit arising from experiments with sexually transmitted diseases and human subjects in Guatemala between 1946 and 1948.
At the same time, the government announced increased aid to Guatemala to combat sexually transmitted diseases.
In response to the lawsuit first filed in March by the alleged victims and their heirs, the U.S. government states that is immune to a trial in a motion to dismiss the complaint filed Monday.
Because the injury occurred in a foreign country, and because the Guatemalans have not exhausted other administrative remedies, the United States enjoy sovereign immunity in the Federal Tort Claims Act, said in the motion.
The government said the Supreme Court “clarified” that the immunity law “bars all claims based on injury suffered in a foreign country, regardless of where the wrongful act or omission occurred.”
The United States apologized for the study, and President Barack Obama asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethics to examine the details of the investigation and to ensure that the current rules to protect people from unethical treatment .
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the U.S. Department Health and Human Services announced it will invest approximately $ 1.8 million to help the treatment and prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala.
The money will also “strengthen the ethical training of human research protection,” the agency said in a statement.
“These new activities are part of the Obama administration’s commitment to ensure that the U.S. has the highest possible human subject protection at home and abroad,” the statement said.
Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will increase funding to Guatemala for $ 775 000 over three years to help monitor and control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
The dispute concerns U.S. Public Health Service study of sexually transmitted inoculation against the disease, 1946-1948, which was carried out to determine the effectiveness of penicillin for the treatment or prevention of syphilis after subjects were exposed to the disease. Gonorrhea and chancroid were also studied. Penicillin was a relatively new drug at the time.
The tests were conducted among sex workers, prisoners at the national penitentiary, mental patients at the National Hospital and soldiers. The study found that more than 1,600 people were infected: 696 with syphilis, gonorrhea, and 772 142 with sores.
The lawsuit filed by victims and their heirs Guatemalan project compares to the experience of Tuskegee, Alabama syphilis. In this study of 40 years from 1932, doctors observed how the disease has progressed to about 400 poor African-Americans who have had syphilis. The men were never told they had the disease and were never treated by him. The subjects received free medical testing, meals and burial insurance.
“The decision to move to Guatemala was part of a deliberate plan to continue testing of Tuskegee in the sea, which would not be subject to the same level of scrutiny than in the United States,” said the study.
In experiments in Guatemala, consent was not given by the subjects, the institutions that house, Guatemalans argue.
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/10/world/americas/us-guatemala-std-experiments/index.html?hpt=ila_c2
