Speaking of Compensation …

Not even the most bitter enemy of the United States would have considered the possibility of what happened in Guatemala 64 years ago. The outrageous experiment to test the effectiveness of penicillin — a drug that was not well known at the time — on prostitutes, soldiers, prisoners and helpless mental patients, by intentionally infecting them with syphilis and gonorrhea without informed consent, exceeds all imaginable limits.

This disgrace is deepening because the experiment was carried out with funding from the government at the time, and with the knowledge of the former Pan American Health Sanitary Bureau, which must also admit its association and at least offer a similar apology.

The answer to the most painful question — why Guatemala? — can be found in the historical period when this abomination occurred: President Juan José Arévalo was a professor and eminent Guatemalan humanist, and he was the head of a country that was without doubt uninvolved in the horrific project. With the advances of the October Revolution, the government rebelled ideologically and socially against American influence that was rising as a consequence of the Allied victory in the Second World War and the start of the Cold War, a factor that, years later, had such an influence on the painful history of Guatemala.

The statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the apologies offered by President Barack Obama can be seen as courageous, facing up to a historical event that shames the United States and the international science community. They also constitute the only reaction possible against the risk that the American or international press discover the result of the investigation by Professor Susan Reverby regarding the work of Doctor John Cutler, who also participated in a very similar experiment, conducted for decades on poor blacks infected with syphilis in Alabama.

It is pointless to look for survivors. In any case, the youngest would be about 85 years old today, which means that much less than 1 percent of the population. That is why the contrition of current U.S. officials, if it is to be considered genuine, must go the route of compensation for thousands of Guatemalans. It is not enough to describe the research as reprehensible under the pretext of public health, and point to it as an abominable practice of an atrocious event. It is those things, of course. But now is the time for the current U.S. government — also Democratic like the administration of Harry Truman, under which this heinous act occurred — to take specific steps to show the respect to Guatemalans that was mentioned in the official statement.

The response of the United States should be to assure Guatemalan immigrants that current persecution will cease, to give them the special status granted to citizens of other countries and additional assistance programs and aid for the reconstruction of the country after the devastating damage of the current winter. Only in that way will we be able to speak of forgiveness and forgetting a reality that has absolutely all the elements of a nightmare.