美國曾用囚犯和精神病患者做性病實驗 致死83人

At least 83 people died in US research on sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala in the 1940s, a commission ordered by President Barack Obama concluded Monday.

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 1,500 detainees in Guatemala, including mental patients, for the study, which aimed to find out if penicillin could be used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

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

Neither was the subjects told what the purpose of the research was nor were they warned of its potentially fatal consequences.

"We believe that there were 83 deaths and fewer than 700 people received some form of treatment as best as could be documented,” said Stephen Hauser a member of the commission.

"It was not an accident that this happened in Guatemala," Commission president Amy Gutmann said. "Some of the people involved said they could not do this in their own country."

The US researchers "systematically failed to show minimal respect for human rights and act in accordance with morality in the conduct of research," she said, citing "substantial evidence" of an attempted cover-up.

Some experts have claimed that the research came up with no useful medical information.

Obama personally apologized to Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom in October before ordering a thorough review of what happened.

Meanwhile, The Guatemalan president has called the 1946-1948 experiments conducted by the US National Institutes of Health "crimes against humanity".

據法新社8月29日報道，美國總統巴拉克-奧巴馬任命的調查委員會本週一(29日)證實，上世紀40年代美國在危地馬拉進行的性傳播疾病實驗造成至少83人死亡。

這項在危地馬拉進行的實驗是由一名備受爭議的美國醫生約翰•卡特負責的，該實驗直到2010年才被公佈於世。當時韋爾斯利學院的教授蘇珊•裏維爾比偶然發現了這些概述該實驗的存檔文件。

爲了開展該實驗課題，卡特和他的研究夥伴們共招收了1500名包括精神病患者在內的危地馬拉在押人員，目的是驗證青黴素可否用於性病防治。

起初，研究人員給危地馬拉的女性性工作者“接種”了淋病或梅毒病毒，然後再讓她們與士兵或囚犯進行沒有采取保護措施的性行爲。

研究人員既沒有告知受試者實驗的目的，也沒有警告受試者實驗可能導致他們失去生命。

調查委員會成員史蒂芬•豪澤說：“我們確信(在該實驗中)有83人死亡，而現有文件只能證明，當時只有不足700人接受了某種形式的治療。”

委員會主席艾米•古德曼說：“這不是發生在危地馬拉的一起意外事件。參與該實驗的一些人表示，他們不會在自己的國家做這種事。”

她認爲美國研究人員“沒有給予人權最起碼的尊重，在實驗過程中違背了人倫道德”，而且也有“足夠證據”證明研究人員曾試圖掩蓋事實真相。

一些專家稱，該研究根本不能得到任何有用的醫學信息。

去年10月，奧巴馬親自向危地馬拉總統阿爾瓦羅•柯隆表示了歉意，隨後下令徹查這件事。

同時，危地馬拉總統稱這項由美國國立衛生研究院在1946至1948年進行的實驗“違反了人類道德”。