Guatemalans sue U.S. government for infecting them with STDs

Remember last year, when a professor at Wellesley College discovered that the U.S. government had secretly infected scores of Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases medical experiments during the 1940s? Among other things, that scandalous revelation prompted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to issue a formal apology to the Central American nation, and to Guatemalan residents of the United States.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that an official apology isn't going to make the ugly episode going away. Survivors of the experiment and the survivors of deceased test subjects are suing the U.S. government.

Dr. Susan Reverby uncovered evidence of the Guatemelan experiments while she was researching a book on the infamous Tuskegee experiments the government conducted on blacks in Alabama for decades during the previous century.Over the course of the study, U.S. scientists injected hundreds of mental patients with gonorrhea and syphilis--all with the blessing of the Guatemalan government. The researchers overseeing the trials even encouraged many of the infected to pass the disease on to others through unprotected sex.

"Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," Clinton and Sebelius said in a joint statement at the time. "We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices."

(Photo of Hillary Clinton and Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom holding a press conference via: AP/Rodrigo Abd)