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Johns Hopkins sued for $1bn over role in deliberate STD infections in Guatemala Guatemalans deliberately infected with STDs sue Johns Hopkins University for $1bn
(about 11 hours later)
More than 750 plaintiffs are suing the Johns Hopkins Hospital System Corp over its role in a series of medical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and 1950s during which subjects were deliberately infected with venereal diseases without their consent. Nearly 800 plaintiffs have launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against Johns Hopkins University over its alleged role in the deliberate infection of hundreds of vulnerable Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis and gonorrhoea, during a medical experiment programme in the 1940s and 1950s.
The lawsuit in Baltimore seeks $1bn in damages for individuals, spouses and children of people infected with syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases through a US government program from 1945-56. Related: Guatemala victims of US syphilis study still haunted by the 'devil's experiment'
The suit claims officials at Johns Hopkins had “substantial influence” over the studies by controlling some panels that advised the federal government on how to spend research dollars. The suit also alleges that Hopkins and the Rockefeller Foundation, which is also named as a defendant, “did not limit their involvement to design, planning, funding and authorization of the Experiments; instead, they exercised control over, supervised, supported, encouraged, participated in and directed the course of the Experiments”. The lawsuit, which also names the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, alleges that both institutions helped “design, support, encourage and finance” the experiments by employing scientists and physicians involved in the tests, which were designed to ascertain if penicillin could prevent the diseases.
The suit, which includes 774 plaintiffs, says the experiments were conducted abroad in order to give “researchers the opportunity to test additional methods of infecting humans with venereal disease easily hidden from public scrutiny”. Researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine held “substantial influence” over the commissioning of the research program by dominating panels that approved federal funding for the research, the suit claims.
According to the US department of health and human services, researchers initially infected Guatemalan sex workers with gonorrhea or syphilis, then allowed them to have sex with soldiers and prison inmates with the aim of spreading the disease. The lawsuit asserts that a researcher paid by the Rockefeller Foundation was assigned to the experiments, which he travelled to inspect on at least six occasions.
The suit says that orphans, children and mental patients were also deliberately infected without their consent, and that treatment was withheld from some subjects. The suit also claims that predecessor companies of the pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb supplied penicillin for use in the experiments, which they knew to be both secretive and non-consensual.
Revelations of these experiments came to light in 2010. Barack Obama apologized for the research, as did then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton and then-secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius. The experiments, which occurred between 1945 and 1956, were kept secret until they were discovered in 2010 by a college professor, Susan Reverby. The programme published no findings and did not inform Guatemalans who were infected of the consequences of their participation, nor did it provide them with follow up medical care or inform them of ways to prevent the infections spreading, the lawsuit states.
“The people involved were icons at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Rockefeller foundation,” said Paul Bekman, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “They knew about it, they were architects of it, they planned it, they sought funding for it, they kept it under the radar. Hopkins provided syphilitic rabbits that were used to inject individuals with syphilis.” Orphans, prisoners and mental health patients were deliberately infected in the experiments.
In a written statement, Hopkins called the experiments “deplorable”. The plaintiffs case quotes the correspondence from one of the programme’s lead researchers who tells another doctor that if it were discovered by “some goody organization” that the programme was testing people who were mentally ill it would “raise a lot of smoke”. The manager continues: “I see no reason to say where the work was done and the type of volunteer.”
But Robert Mathias, the lead counsel for Johns Hopkins in the case, said the lawsuit “baseless”. Baltimore-based attorney for the plaintiffs Paul Bekman told the Guardian that of the 774 claimants, about 60 were direct survivors of the programme. Many have died as a result of deliberate infection and others had passed on disease to family members and partners.
“It was not a Johns Hopkins study. Johns Hopkins did not initiate, pay for or direct this study. It was a federal government study,” Mathias said. “Everyone who knows anything knows that when doctors and scientists are acting on those committees they are acting on behalf of the federal government and not on the behalf of the research university or hospital they came from.” “The people who are responsible [for carrying out the research] now are long dead,” said Bekman “But the records are there, and we have detailed documentation that supports the allegations in our complaint.”
In a written statement, the Rockefeller Foundation called the research “morally repugnant”, and said it agrees that the US government owes reparations to victims and their families. However, it says the foundation “did not design, fund, or manage any of these experiments, and had absolutely no knowledge of them”, and will oppose the lawsuit. Marta Orellana was a nine-year-old orphan when she was included in the experiments. In an interview with the Guardian in 2011 she recalled being forcibly examined by light-complexioned foreigners and a Guatemalan doctor in the orphanage infirmary.
Pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb is also a defendant in the case. “They never told me what they were doing, never gave me a chance to say no,” Orellana said “I’ve lived almost my whole life without knowing the truth. May God forgive them.”
A spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb declined to comment on Wednesday. A call to the Rockefeller Foundation was not immediately returned. Included within the legal claim are graphic descriptions of some of the methods used by the researchers to infect their subjects:
It’s the latest in a series of lawsuits over the studies. During the experiments the following occurred:
A federal judge in 2012 dismissed a lawsuit against the US government involving the same study after determining that the US government can’t be held liable for actions outside the United States. The then secretary of state Hillary Clinton apologised for the programme in 2010 after a presidential bioethics commission investigation found the experiments “involved unconscionable basic violations of ethics”.
A federal lawsuit for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act failed in 2012 after a judge determined the US government cannot be held liable for actions outside the United States. Bekman told the Guardian he believed the new lawsuit stood a greater chance of success as it was lodged in the state court of Maryland and against private entities.
Both Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation have vigorously denied any involvement in the experiments.
A spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said the institute expressed “profound sympathy” for the victims of the experiments and their families, but added: “Johns Hopkins did not initiate, pay for, direct of conduct the study in Guatemala. No nonprofit university or hospital has ever been held liable for a study conducted by the US government.”
The university stated it would “vigorously defend” the lawsuit.
The Rockefeller Foundation issued a detailed response to the claim online, which it described as seeking to “improperly to assign ‘guilt by association’ in the absence of compensation from the United States federal government”.
The statement continued: “In the absence of a connection to the Rockefeller Foundation, the lawsuit attempts to connect the Foundation to the experiments through misleading characterizations of relationships between the Foundation and individuals who were in some way associated with the experiments.”
A spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb declined to comment.