More than 750 Guatemalans have filed a $1 billion lawsuit against American research institutions that they say were involved in a United States government-run study of sexually-transmitted diseases. The experiments infected or exposed more than 1,300 Guatemalans to syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid without their consent.
The complaint alleges that Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation “participated in, approved, encouraged, directed, and aided and abetted human subject experimentations in Guatemala.” It further states that the predecessors of Bristol-Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical company, were “made aware of the study results in order that they might better manufacture and market for profit various forms of the drug for use in treating and/or preventing syphilis.”
For the most part, the facts of the case are not in question. A 2011 report by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues acknowledged that “subjects in Guatemala were deliberately exposed to infections” by the U.S. Public Health Service study.
Researchers exposed prisoners, soldiers, and patients at a state-run psychiatric hospital to STDs for a study that was conducted from 1946 to 1953.
The research was carried out by the same laboratory that ran the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study which left 400 African American men with syphilis untreated for nearly 30 years so U.S. government researchers could observe the progress of their infections.
In 2010, President Barack Obama called former Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom to express “deep regret” for the research which he called “clearly unethical.”
“While I believe that the research community has made tremendous progress in the area of human subjects’ protection, what took place in Guatemala is a sobering reminder of past abuses,” Obama said in a statement. He added that, “We owe it to the people of Guatemala” to uphold medical ethics in such studies.
But victims and their families are interested in more than apologies and promises — and are hoping that a U.S. court can grant them punitive damages for their suffering. Having already tried and failed in their efforts to sue the U.S. government, effected Guatemalans have now turned to the organizations that they say supported the research on STDs.
For their part, the Rockefeller Foundation and Johns Hopkins have denied involvement in the study.
A spokesperson for the Rockefeller Foundation called the research on STDs “morally repugnant” in an email to ThinkProgress, adding that the Foundation feels that the U.S. government should pay reparations to the victims and their families.
Kim Hoppe, a spokesperson for Johns Hopkins expressed “profound sympathy” for those impacted by the study.
“The plaintiffs’ essential claim in this case is that prominent Johns Hopkins faculty members’ participation on a government committee that reviewed funding applications was tantamount to conducting the research itself and that therefore Johns Hopkins should be held liable,” she wrote in an email to ThinkProgress. “Neither assertion is true.”
Hoppe called the lawsuit an attempt to “exploit a historic tragedy for monetary gain.”
Both Johns Hopkins and the Rockefeller Foundation denied involvement in the study and said they would vigorously defend themselves in court. Bristol-Myers Squibb declined to comment on the case.
“Legal experts said the lawsuit’s arguments could be a stretch,” an article by the Baltimore Sun noted. It continued:
Today, professors who frequently serve on a volunteer basis with the National Institutes of Health, for example, are generally considered to be acting independently and not in their capacity as university faculty, said Holly Fernandez Lynch, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard University Law School.
The lawsuit presents questions over whether the institutions have “sufficient control or authority” over the individuals to be held accountable for their decisions, and whether the institutions were the cause of the victims’ injuries, said Terrence Collingsworth, managing partner with Conrad & Scherer LLP in Washington, who represented victims of the experiments in a federal lawsuit in 2011 and 2012.
Another potential impediment to the Guatemalan case might be the time that has elapsed since the initial study was carried out. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton tossed out a case brought Guatemalan victims’ and their families in 2012 because he said federal law prevents claims against the U.S. for damages suffered in a foreign country. The Judge also cited that claims could not be brought against current U.S. officials for the work for their predecessors. It may be that similar arguments could be made to protect Johns Hopkins, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Bristol-Myers Squibb from accountability in the instance that they are found to have supported or carried out the study.
Judge Walton encouraged the victims to seek help from “the political branches of our government,” but victims have instead turned to the research institutions that they say were involved in the study.