$1 Billion Lawsuit: Government Funded Studies Intentionally Infected People With STDs

Doctors from the hospital, the suit alleges, deliberately infected soldiers, prisoners, orphans, and the mentally ill with STDs like syphilis and gonorrhea — without their consent — in order to test whether or not penicillin could cure them.
By Carey Wedler for AntiMedia | April 4, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) A class action lawsuit has been filed against Johns Hopkins University for performing unethical, government-sponsored studies on Guatemalan citizens in the 1940s and 1950s. Doctors from the hospital, the suit alleges, deliberately infected soldiers, prisoners, orphans, and the mentally ill with STDs like syphilis and gonorrhea — without their consent — in order to test whether or not penicillin could cure them. Consent was only granted from authorities in Guatemala.

The lawsuit involves almost 800 plaintiffs, including affected family members and spouses of the original victims. It is seeking nearly a billion dollars in damages and also names the Rockefeller Foundation as complicit, saying it helped “design, support, encourage and finance” the studies. Additionally, it alleges that pharmaceutical giant, Bristol-Myers Squibb, supplied the penicillin. The revelations came only because Susan Reverby, a professor at Wellesley University, uncovered the evidence in 2010.

The lawsuit claims the following methods were used to infect subjects: Read more…