At least 5,500 prisoners, mental patients, soldiers, and children were drafted into the experiments, including at least 1,300 who were exposed to the sexually transmitted diseases syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid, the commission reported. At least 83 subjects died, although the commission could not determine how many of the deaths were directly caused by the experiments, they said Monday.
“This is a dark chapter in our history. It is important to shine the light of day on it. We owe it to the people of Guatemala who were experimented on, and we owe it to ourselves to recognize what a dark chapter it was,’’ said Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania, the commission’s chairwoman.
The revelations came on the opening day of a two-day hearing the commission convened to review the findings of its investigation. President Obama ordered the investigation when the experiments were revealed in October. Investigators reviewed more than 125,000 documents from public and private archives around the country and conducted a fact-finding trip to the Central American nation.
The Guatemalan government is conducting its own investigation. The experiments were approved by some Guatemalan officials.
“Actually cruel and inhuman conduct took place,’’ said Anita L. Allen of the University of Pennsylvania. “These are very grave human rights violations.’’
In one case described during Monday’s two-hour hearing, a woman who was infected with syphilis was clearly dying from the disease. Instead of treating her, the researchers poured gonorrhea-infected pus into her eyes and other orifices and infected her again with syphilis. She died six months later.
The ultimate goal of the Guatemalan research was to determine whether taking penicillin after sex would protect against syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid. The question was a medical priority at the time, especially in the military. The Guatemalan experiments, carried out between 1946 and 1948, aimed to find a reliable way of infecting subjects for future studies.
The research included infecting prisoners by bringing them prostitutes who were already carrying the diseases or were purposely infected by the researchers.
