About this episode

This episode discusses the Guatemala Syphilis Study, a dark chapter in medical history involving unethical human experimentation.

The Guatemala Syphilis Study is one of the darkest chapters in medical history: a U.S., funded experiment in the 1940s where doctors deliberately infected prisoners, soldiers, psychiatric patients, and sex workers in Guatemala with syphilis and other STIs without their informed consent. Many were never properly treated, never told what had been done to them, and were used as test subjects simply because they were poor, vulnerable, and out of sight. Decades later, the study stands as a brutal reminder that “public health” and “scientific progress” have, far too often, been built on the bodies and lives of people who were never given a choice.

People in this episode

Host: Georgia Marie

Topics covered

• medical ethics
• human experimentation
• public health
• historical injustices
• syphilis study

Keywords

• Guatemala Syphilis Study
• medical research
• human rights
• STIs
• informed consent

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Guatemala Syphilis Study

Places: Guatemala

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