E71 American Medical Atrocities in Guatemala

Gladio Free Europe

In 2011, the US National Archives released 12,000 pages of documents relating to the activities of the Public Health Service in 1940s Guatemala. This report conclusively proved that a team of doctors led by John Charles Cutler, previously involved in the notorious Tuskegee Experiment, knowingly infected patients in Guatemala with syphilis and other venereal diseases.

Our friend Krebbs joins Russian Sam for a discussion about this deeply shocking episode in the history of US-Latin American relations. Under the pretext of a program to study prophylactic methods for STDs, thousands of Guatemalans were infected without their consent. The victims included some of the vulnerable members of Guatemalan society, including psychiatric patients, prisoners, prostitutes, and orphans. The methods by which these patients were infected exhibited a sadism that rivals the medical atrocities of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

The US formally apologized for these horrific crimes in the Obama administration, but the grievances of the victims remain without redress. Join us as we explore the history of syphilis treatment and other brutally unethical medical experiments to understand why this official apology remains unsatisfying. As we explore how white supremacy and imperial violence underscore human medical experimentation, we have to ask if this atrocity in Guatemala was really about preventing disease at all.