US argues it is immune from STD trials lawsuit
Source: Agencies |
January 11, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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THE Obama administration argued on Monday that Guatemalans unknowingly exposed to sexually transmitted diseases by US researchers in the 1940s cannot sue the United States, no matter how shameful and unethical the studies were.
In its first response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the experiment's subjects, the US Justice Department late on Monday said sovereign immunity protects federal health officials from litigation stemming from the study.
The experiment conducted in the 1940s exposed Guatemalan prostitutes, prisoners, mental patients and soldiers to STDs to test the effects of penicillin. The studies were conducted without the test subjects' consent.
President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have apologized for the research, hidden for decades until a Wellesley College medical historian uncovered the records in 2009.
The Justice Department filing on Monday said the studies were "a deeply troubling chapter in our nation's history."
"As a result of these unethical studies, a terrible wrong has occurred. The United States is committed to taking appropriate steps to address that wrong," the filing said, without elaborating on what steps might be planned.
But the government attorneys argued, "This lawsuit is not the proper vehicle - and this court is not the proper forum - through which the consequences of this shameful conduct may be resolved."
The government argued the Federal Tort Claims Act protects the United States from lawsuits based on injuries suffered in a foreign country, even if acts that caused the harm were planned in the United States.
Attorneys for the Guatemalans said the immunity assertion contradicts the apologies made by Obama and his advisers. They also said failure to accept responsibility for the human rights abuses violates international prohibitions against nonconsensual human medical experimentation that the United States and other nations renounced during the Nuremberg trials following World War II.
Guatemalan officials said last month that they have found 2,082 people were involved in the experiments conducted from 1946-1948 to infect subjects with syphilis, gonorrhea or chancroid. US officials put the figure at 1,308 subjects.
The STD study was designed to test the effects of penicillin, then a relatively new drug.
Among the research goals, funded by the predecessor of the US National Institutes of Health, was to see how well differing dosages of penicillin worked against different venereal diseases.
In its first response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the experiment's subjects, the US Justice Department late on Monday said sovereign immunity protects federal health officials from litigation stemming from the study.
The experiment conducted in the 1940s exposed Guatemalan prostitutes, prisoners, mental patients and soldiers to STDs to test the effects of penicillin. The studies were conducted without the test subjects' consent.
President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have apologized for the research, hidden for decades until a Wellesley College medical historian uncovered the records in 2009.
The Justice Department filing on Monday said the studies were "a deeply troubling chapter in our nation's history."
"As a result of these unethical studies, a terrible wrong has occurred. The United States is committed to taking appropriate steps to address that wrong," the filing said, without elaborating on what steps might be planned.
But the government attorneys argued, "This lawsuit is not the proper vehicle - and this court is not the proper forum - through which the consequences of this shameful conduct may be resolved."
The government argued the Federal Tort Claims Act protects the United States from lawsuits based on injuries suffered in a foreign country, even if acts that caused the harm were planned in the United States.
Attorneys for the Guatemalans said the immunity assertion contradicts the apologies made by Obama and his advisers. They also said failure to accept responsibility for the human rights abuses violates international prohibitions against nonconsensual human medical experimentation that the United States and other nations renounced during the Nuremberg trials following World War II.
Guatemalan officials said last month that they have found 2,082 people were involved in the experiments conducted from 1946-1948 to infect subjects with syphilis, gonorrhea or chancroid. US officials put the figure at 1,308 subjects.
The STD study was designed to test the effects of penicillin, then a relatively new drug.
Among the research goals, funded by the predecessor of the US National Institutes of Health, was to see how well differing dosages of penicillin worked against different venereal diseases.
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