The university is said to have been involved in the deliberate infection of people in Guatemala with syphilis, gonorrhea

Apr 3, 2015 12:26 GMT  ·  By
Prestigious US university accused of involvement in unethical experiments in Guatemala
   Prestigious US university accused of involvement in unethical experiments in Guatemala

This past Wednesday, April 1, almost 800 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, accusing the US institution of having been involved in a study during which people in Guatemala were deliberately infected with STDs like syphilis and gonorrhea. 

The complaint further alleges that the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation was also involved in this study in Guatemala, as were the parent companies of pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, i.e. Bristol-Myers and the Squibb Corporation.

The study referenced in the suit really did happen

In the 1940s and 1950s, the US government had researchers deliberately infect men and women in Guatemala with STDs, syphilis and gonorrhea included, just so that they could test if penicillin might help treat these diseases.

In their legal claim, the plaintiffs argue that these experiments were carried out without people in Guatemala knowing what the US scientists were doing to them. Instead, the subjects were told that they were merely being subjected to routine medical tests.

No efforts were made to prevent the men and women directly involved in this study from passing the diseases on to their spouses, children or close ones. A large number of people died and many are still struggling with the STDs that the US government introduced in Guatemala.

“The Guatemalans were not told about the nature of the experiments, warned about the consequences of being exposed to and infected with these sexually transmitted diseases, or given any follow-up care, treatment, or education to minimize their pain and suffering,” the complaint reads.

News of these experiments emerged in 2010, when college professor Susan Reverby learned about them and made the information public. An investigation was launched, and in September 2011, the US Presidential Commission openly labeled them unethical and immoral.

The suit says the Johns Hopkins University was involved

In their complaint, the nearly 800 plaintiffs who filed a suit against the Johns Hopkins University this past Wednesday argue that, between the years 1945 and 1956, the research institution, together with the Rockefeller Foundation, was part of and supported the Guatemala experiments.

“From 1945 to 1956, physicians and scientists, and other agents employed by Johns Hopkins and the Rockefeller Foundation, participated in, approved, encouraged, directed, and aided and abetted human subject experiments in Guatemala,” the plaintiffs claim.

They further detail that these experiments that the Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation backed up were carried on children, prison inmates, psychiatric hospital soldiers, and orphans who had no idea what was happening to them.

As for the parent companies of pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, the lawsuit alleges that Bristol-Myers and the Squibb Corporation were the ones that provided the penicillin used in the unethical and immoral experiments US researchers carried out in Guatemala.

Johns Hopkins denies having been part of the study

In a statement concerning the lawsuit filed against it this past Wednesday, the John Hopkins University denies having been involved in any of the tests that US researchers carried out on people in Guatemala in the 1940s and 1950s.

The institution says that, contrary to the claims included in the complaint filed against it, it never participated in either of the experiments, nor did it orchestrate them. Thus, the university insists that the US government acted alone.

“This was not a Johns Hopkins study. Johns Hopkins did not initiate, pay for, direct or conduct the study in Guatemala,” reads the institution's statement. Furthermore, “Plaintiffs’ legal claims are not supported by the facts. We will vigorously defend the lawsuit.”

Together with the Rockefeller Foundation, the Johns Hopkins University insists that the plaintiffs are only interested in monetary gain, especially seeing how the lawsuit they attempted to file against the US government was dismissed in 2012 on the grounds of governmental immunity.

More precisely, this previous lawsuit was not allowed to proceed on the grounds that the US government could not be held liable for something that happened outside the US.