Talk:Guatemala syphilis experiments

A news item involving Guatemala syphilis experiments was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 2 October 2010.

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Above undated message substituted from

This article has been nominated at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. Good luck! :-D --BorgQueen (talk) 14:11, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These terms are not even in the see also section nor in the category tags at the bottom of the page and indeed they seem not to be anywhere in Wikipedia. But they are all over Google's page one. Are these subjects banned? BTW My tilde key doesn't work. What should I do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by General Student 21 (talk • contribs) 10:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the wiki article, it is currently written, "Hidden from the public, John Charles Cutler utilized healthy individuals in order to improve what he called `pure science.`"

This statement could use some re-wording. On interpretation is that healthy individuals were used in the study (not infected) in order to provide a comparison point (control group). That is, "John Charles Cutler included a control group of healthy patients in order to compare infected individuals to non-infected."

A second interpretation is that John Charles Cutler infected healthy individuals. What does it mean to "utilize" a healthy patient. Additionally, it is useless to note that John Cutler named some process `pure science` unless you, at the very least, summarize or describe that process. It's a bit like writing, "Joe Shmoe developed the `varight` process." Unless there is a wiki page on the "varight process," or you explain what the "varight` process," that statement is meaningless. It's like writing "Srah Silverman invented the wangdoodle." Unless you define what a "wangdoodle" is, who cares if she invented something called a "wangdoodle." What on earth is "pure science," as according to John Cutler? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.176.71 (talk) 22:36, 12 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The boston.com source says that US scientists "received the blessings of Guatemalan health authorities". This isn't really "Guatemala sponsored" --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure this could not have happened without involvement of Guatemalan health authorities and I suspect some money was paid to some people also for enrolling these subjects. maybe we need to get rid of the word sponsored completely. I am also uncomfortable with the wording especially since Guatemalan authorities have proffered no apologies ( to their people) and are pretending to be "innocent victims" here--Wikireader41 (talk) 22:28, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? Why would Guatemalan authorities back in the 1940's care about the wellbeing and rights of mental patients (especially if those authorities were being paid)? Most ppl in the world back then (and, sadly, some today) looked down with scorn on the mentally ill and thought of them as great burdens who were to blame for their own situation. The Guatemalan authorities were just as much to blame as the racist creeps who conducted (and authorized) such experiments. 99.152.115.55 (talk) 19:49, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Times, it was done without knowledge of Guatemalan officials: [1] -Bertrc (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to HHS information, there was definite cooperation at several levels within the Guatemalan government, (e.g., "Guatemalan partners included the Guatemalan Ministry of Health, the National Army of the Revolution, the National Mental Health Hospital, and the Ministry of Justice.") but it's apparent from other sources that Guatemalan officials may have been kept in the dark regarding some of the details... — Scientizzle 14:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The final statement " It is also hoped that a retrospective enquiry is undertaken to identify the culprits of such a heinous and foul minded crime against humanity. [2]" Sounds an awful lot like indiviual bias, perhaps the result of a copy paste from a news article. I am not a Wiki-editor so I did not delete it, however it does not fit in a wiki article from my experience and find it undermines the integrety of the article as a whole. Also the link to [2] has nothing to do with the statement unless it was a copy paste. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.12.244.249 (talk) 00:03, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Following your comment, the sentence was removed by

feel free to edit Wikipedia. Cheers! -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 15:48, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply

]

No American public official, even a "Democrat" would ever say this. This statement being quoted and attributed to Clinton and Sebelius is surely a forgery.Eregli bob (talk) 01:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch! The sentence was removed by Danaman5 (talk · contribs). Thanks! -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 15:51, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Edit history dates back to October 1, 2010. I thought something that happened in the '40s would already be covered on Wikipedia much earlier. --219.101.154.162 (talk) 05:34, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that information about the experiments was unearthed within the last few years and publicized fairly recently. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 15:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, to have an article on Wikipedia someone has to be motivated enough to create and write it. _EricLeb⁰¹ (Page | Talk) 17:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a bit of new information around, and Cutler's records are available for perusal online. Changes should probably be made to reflect the fact that these experiments were not confined to syphilis only, though at a guess I'd say the fact that the syphilis experiments have been highlighted over the ones related to gonorrhea and other STDs is that they have been confirmed to have involved deliberate infection with syphilis material. It seems less likely that Guatemalan authorities would have allowed soldiers (tracked in the gonorrhea study) to be infected in this way. Nevard (talk) 03:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The page implies that the US Administration pledged that there would be "no statute of limitations" for the medical ethics violations, but the two citations listed don't provide any evidence for this statement.

Anybody have thoughts on this? Anybody know what the statute of limitations is? I will edit and replace with a footnote on Alien Tort Claims statute of limitations issues in general unless someone chimes in within a couple of weeks. Invisible Flying Mangoes (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:13, 24 August 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Can someone with the necessary clearance change the title? Many experiments were done over the years of the study.

Regarding syphilis being used as shorthand to stand in for the other STDs studied (gonorrhea and chancroid), I think it might be due to the public knowing that syphilis has such dreaded consequences (insanity, for instance), and also to make the parallel with Tuskegee, which was going on contemporaneously. Postpostmod (talk) 17:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]