There is a new entry in the long catalog of historic research abuses. The now-infamous U.S. Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Disease Inoculation Study-run in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 by American and local Guatemalan investigators to study STD prophylaxis and transmission-was conducted without individual consent, yet it involved intentionally exposing vulnerable human subjects to syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid through both intercourse with infected commercial sex workers and artificial inoculation with disease pathogens. The researchers and their superiors worked hard to preserve secrecy, and in fact the study remained hidden from public view for over half a century.It was rediscovered in 2003, when Wellesley historian Susan Reverby came across original documents describing the Guatemala activities while working in the archival records of one of the researchers who had also been involved in the Tuske-gee syphilis study. Reverby presented her findings from these records at an academic conference in May 2010, once she felt she had been able to adequately understand the inoculation study and put it in historical context. Over the subsequent months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a preliminary report based on its independent review, Reverby published her analysis, the U.S.
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