Panel to Release Guatemala Report in Future

Amy Gutmann, head of a bioethics commission said that a study of STDs using patients in Guatemala was wrong and US probe is still continuing. She added on saying that in the coming months report on this case would be released.

"What happened was clearly wrong," said Amy Gutmann, who chairs the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, at a meeting to discuss progress in the Obama-ordered review of human protection in medical research.

Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea is a very common sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by a bacterium/superbug called Neisseria gonorrhoeae. It is spread during sexual intercourse- vaginal, oral, and anal.

"It was clearly terribly wrong and we want to get the facts out there," said Gutmann, who also announced the formation of a 13-member international panel of experts to examine the ethics of medical research around the world.

Executive director of the US bioethics commission, Valerie Bonham, said a full report on the 1946-1948 Guatemala situation should be released in the coming months.

"To date, we have reviewed 477 boxes of materials, hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, and we anticipate that we will review hundreds of boxes more," said Bonham.

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Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochete bacterium. Syphilis can be passed from mother to her baby during pregnancy.

"The investigation will proceed where the evidence leads," she added.

"We began this work just eight short weeks ago. It is my hope and expectation that you will have the report at the beginning of the summer."

The Guatemalan study, which was never published, came to light in 2010 after Wellesley College professor Susan Reverby stumbled upon archived documents outlining the experiment led by controversial US doctor John Cutler.

Cutler and his fellow researchers enrolled people in Guatemala, including mental patients, for the study, which aimed to find out if penicillin could be used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

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A review of human protection in medical research has been ordered by President Barack Obama.

Initially, the researchers infected female Guatemalan commercial sex workers with gonorrhea or syphilis, and then allowed them to have unprotected sex with soldiers or prison inmates.

A total of some 1,500 people took part in the study. At least one patient died during the experiments, although it is not clear whether the death was from the tests or from an underlying medical problem.

Cutler was also involved in a highly controversial study known as the Tuskegee Experiment in which hundreds of African-American men with late-stage syphilis were observed but given no treatment between 1932 and 1972.

Source-AFP