American scientists deliberately infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis 60 years ago, a recently unearthed experiment that prompted U.S. officials to apologise on Friday and declare outrage over "such reprehensible research".
The discovery dredges up past wrongs in the name of science - such as the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study that has long dampened minority participation in medical research - and could complicate ongoing studies overseas that depend on cooperation from some of the world's poorest countries to tackle tough-to-treat diseases.
Uncovering it gives "us all a chance to look at this and - even as we are appalled at what was done - to redouble our efforts to make sure something like this could never happen again," said Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The NIH-funded experiment, which ran from 1946 to 1948, was uncovered by a Wellesley College medical historian. It apparently was conducted to test if penicillin, then relatively new, could prevent some sexually transmitted infections. The study came up with no useful information and was hidden for decades.
"We are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.
President Barack Obama called Guatemala's president, Alvaro Colom, later on Friday to apologise. Mrs Clinton had called to apologise the night before.
"Obviously this is shocking, it's tragic, it's reprehensible," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. "It's tragic and the US by all means apologises to all those who were impacted."
Guatemalan Embassy official Fernando de la Cerda said his country hadn't known anything about the experiment until Mrs Clinton called to apologise on Thursday night.
"We appreciate this gesture from the USA, acknowledging the mistake and apologizing," he said. "This must not affect the bilateral relationship."
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Strict regulations today make clear that it is unethical to experiment on people without their consent, and require special steps for any work with such vulnerable populations as prisoners. But such regulations didn't exist in the 1940s.
