Time to Face the Truth: the U.S. and Its IllegalExperiments in Guatemala

When I found out about the abominable experiments carried out in Guatemala 64 years ago by an American researcher paid by the United States government, I could only believe it after reading the official apology from Washington.

It gave me a headache, literally. The feelings whirled around in my thoughts: hurt, anger, astonishment and denial for this show of complete disrespect of human dignity, one similar to the atrocious actions of the Nazi medics, which are still condemned by the civilized world. When my initial anger settled, I realized just how many other implicit truths could be concluded from Dr. Susan Reverby’s investigation about the work of the evil monster, Dr. John Cutler.

I will point to the truths as they come to mind, not in a hierarchy of importance. Certainly at the time of the experiments, science would not have been subject to as much ethical scrutiny as today. Yet only a few years prior, the Allied countries of World War II had condemned to death those Nazi authorities responsible for similar crimes against humanity. Reverby’s investigation has revealed the disdain for human life. If no one was opposed to the genocides in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even less was the chance that someone would oppose an experiment whose direct effect would amount to little more than a few thousand victims from a banana republic, which at that time was seeking autonomy after the triumph of a popular revolution based on the same democratic principles employed by the Allied Powers to defeat the Axis.

It required integrity to admit this atrocity publicly, and for that President Obama deserves credit; but the international scandal could have been even greater if there had been an attempt to hide it. Those are another two truths. And to those are added others, such as realizing the inhumanity of the medical experiments that were covered and disguised under false pretenses. What occurred, like it or not, puts a stain on medical investigations from yesterday and also on present ones, for it opens reasonable doubt as to how many more times something similar to this has occurred. Take the Tuskegee case in Alabama, for example: Cutler again participated in a 40-year-long investigation of hundreds of syphilis-infected African American men, without ever having injected them with the virus.

There are other revelations to keep in mind. This abomination was not carried out by the people of the United States, whose majority feels a shame comparable to the deception felt by Guatemalans. Neither were the experiments carried out by the current United States administration, whose apologies are sincere, but not enough. In my judgment, the Guatemalan government officials of the past, above all, Dr. Juan José Arévalo, are innocent, and it is a disgrace to try to insinuate that they were even an accomplice in this. Finally, it is absurd to think that it was the intention of the United States to tarnish the memory of the October Revolution. Within an open society, the news simply surfaced.

The most painful truth is realizing the little respect that exists for Guatemala and its people. It was a vulnerable group, deceived and defenseless — especially in the case of the mental patients — from which the most innocent victims were selected. The infection of 1,600 people from a population of 250,000 would now, in proportional terms, be equivalent to almost 16,000 people.

Finding out about this is, without a doubt, as painful for U.S. citizens as it is for Guatemalans. Their perspectives are distinct, however: that of the victimizer, and that of the victim of both the corrupt historical record of the U.S. and Guatemala, and of human evil. This time it is impossible to dismiss such an act. It was carried out with an absolute lack of ethics and humanity.