Medicine's Wounds: Recent Episodes
Amy Pham
Through modern history, many tragedies have shown how ethics in medicine have progressed backward from the initial decorum that was established over 2,600 years ago in the Hippocratic Oath. Eras in which human experimentation required no consent, contained no modern ethics, and were based on morals generated by unprincipled standards, embodied how medicine could've hurt more than it has helped. Join Amy as she ventures into history to dig up some of the most unethical cases in medical research that has left deep wounds in communities, despite the research that they create.
From 1946 to 1948, the PHS, the National Institutes of Health, the Pan American Health Sanitary Bureau, along with Guatemalan government officials allowed a study that would deliberately infect hundreds of people with syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid-- all sexually transmitted diseases. This study was conducted in Guatemala and had various circumstances that seemed quite similar to the Indiana Terre Haute experiments and the Tuskegee Institute experiments. Find out more in this episode! Skip the case: 25:14 - 26:25 Skip the introduction message (Does not pertain to the topic of the episode: 3:17 Sources:
“US Scientists 'Knew Guatemala Syphilis Tests Unethical'.” BBC News, BBC, 30 Aug. 2011 “US Says Sorry for 'Outrageous and Abhorrent' Guatemalan Syphilis Tests.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 1 Oct. 2010 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Syphilis.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 22 Nov. 2019 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Chancroid.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 21 June 2017 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Gonorrhea.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 Aug. 2020 Fox, Maggie, et al. “U.S. Apologizes for Syphilis Experiment in Guatemala.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 1 Oct. 2010 Reverby, Susan M. “Advanced Synopsis.” “’Normal Exposure’ and Inoculation Syphilis: A PHS ‘Tuskegee’ Doctor in Guatemala, 1946-48,” Jan. 2010 Laughland, Oliver. “Guatemalans Deliberately Infected with STDs Sue Johns Hopkins University for $1bn.” The Guardian, 6 Apr. 2015 Wbur. “'Ethically Impossible:' Revisiting The Guatemalan Syphilis Experiments.” WBUR, WBUR, 26 Sept. 2011 “U.S. Infected Guatemalans With Syphilis During 1940s.” NPR, NPR, 1 Oct. 2010 History , Witness. The Guatemalan Syphilis Scandal. 20 Aug. 2020. Rodriguez, Michael A, and Robert García. “First, Do No Harm: the US Sexually Transmitted Disease Experiments in Guatemala.” American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, Dec. 2013 Obituary: John Charles Cutler / Pioneer in Preventing Sexual Diseases “History of the U.S. and Guatemala.” U.S. Embassy in Guatemala, 14 Dec. 2017 “Human Experiments: First, Do Harm.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group Zhang, Sarah. “The U.S. Doctor Who Infected 1,300 Guatemalan Patients With STDs.” Gizmodo, Gizmodo, 8 Apr. 2015 https://www.nature.com/news/polopoly_fs/7.2771!/file/Cutler_Correspondence.pdf
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Conducted in the late 1930s, the Tudor Study, known as the "Monster" Study, psychologically abused children without their consent or knowledge that they were even in a research experiment. Tune in to this episode to see how it all happened.
Sources:
Ambrose, Nicoline Grinager, and Ehud Yairi. “The Tudor Study: Data and Ethics .” Research , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MOELLER, DOROTHY. Wendell Johnson: The Addiction to Wonder
“The 'Monster Study' on Stuttering.” PsyBlog, 29 July 2010
Reynolds, Gretchen. “The Stuttering Doctor's 'Monster Study'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2003
SILVERMAN, FRANKLIN H. THE “MONSTER” STUDY, Marquette University/ J FLUENCY DISORD, 1988
Bloodstein, 0. A Handbook on Stuttering (Fourth Edition). Chicago: National Easter Seal Society, 1987.
Hahn, E.F. Stuttering: Significant Theories and Therapies (Second Edition). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1956.
Tudor, M. An experimental study of the effect of evaluative labeling on speech fluency. Master’s thesis, University of Iowa, 1939.
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Throughout eons of history, humans have always managed to find a way to heal, regardless of whether or not it proved to be effective or not. The way medicine has evolved over time, indeed, is one of humankind’s most astonishing advancements. Or is it? Why does history show only the results of dangerous trials, and not who or how people got in involved? What flaws does the system still enclose? Even through almost 2000 years of ethics supposedly applied in medicine, horror stories still circulate about how researchers and doctors falsify records about their actions. This podcast, premiering on August 25th, will get into the cracks and crevices of medical history untold in textbooks.