中國網站品牌欄目（頻道）
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Secretary of state Hillary Clinton and health secretary Kathleen Sibelius apologised to the people of Guatemala, and described the actions as 'clearly unethical'.(Agencies) |
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From 1946 to 1948, American public health doctors deliberately infected nearly 700 Guatemalans — prison inmates, mental patients and soldiers — with venereal diseases in what was meant as an effort to test the effectiveness of penicillin. American tax dollars, through the National Institutes of Health, even paid for syphilis-infected prostitutes to sleep with prisoners, since Guatemalan prisons allowed such visits. When the prostitutes did not succeed in infecting the men, some prisoners had the bacteria poured onto scrapes made on their penises, faces or arms, and in some cases it was injected by spinal puncture. If the subjects contracted the disease, they were given antibiotics. “However, whether everyone was then cured is not clear,” said Susan M. Reverby, the professor at Wellesley College who brought the experiments to light in a research paper that prompted American health officials to investigate. The revelations were made public on Friday, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to the government of Guatemala and the survivors and descendants of those infected. They called the experiments “clearly unethical.” “Although these events occurred more than 64 years ago, we are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health,” the secretaries said in a statement. “We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologize to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices.” In a twist to the revelation, the public health doctor who led the experiment, John C. Cutler, would later have an important role in the Tuskegee study in which black American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated for decades. Late in his own life, Dr. Cutler continued to defend the Tuskegee work. His unpublished Guatemala work was unearthed recently in the archives of the University of Pittsburgh by Professor Reverby, a medical historian who has written two books about Tuskegee. President álvaro Colom of Guatemala, who first learned of the experiments on Thursday in a phone call from Mrs. Clinton, called them “hair-raising” and “crimes against humanity.” His government said it would cooperate with the American investigation and do its own. The experiments are “a dark chapter in the history of medicine,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. Modern rules for federally financed research “absolutely prohibit” infecting people without their informed consent, Dr. Collins said. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies)
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1946至1948年間，美國醫療人員為了檢驗青霉素的藥效，故意讓將近700名危地馬拉人感染上性病，其中包括監獄犯人、精神病患者和士兵。 美國國家衛生研究院甚至將稅收付給感染梅毒的妓女，讓她們和囚犯睡覺，危地馬拉的監獄允許此類來訪。如果妓女們沒能讓囚犯感染上梅毒，他們還故意弄破一些囚犯生殖器、臉上或手臂上的皮膚，人為“接種”細菌，甚至通過腰椎穿刺注入。 如果研究對象感染上了疾病，醫生就給他們服用抗生素。 “然而，是不是所有人都被治愈不太清楚”，威爾斯利學院的蘇珊?M?里維爾比教授說。她在一篇研究論文中曝光了這一實驗，促使美國衛生官員介入調查。 上周五，美國國務卿希拉里?羅德海姆?克林頓和美國衛生與公共服務部部長凱瑟琳?西貝柳斯向危地馬拉政府及當時被感染者的幸存者和后代道歉，真相才得以公之于眾。她們稱該實驗“無疑是不道德的”。 希拉里和凱瑟琳在聲明中說：“盡管已經過去64年多了，但這種應受到譴責的研究竟然打著公共衛生的幌子進行，這讓我們感到憤怒。對于此事的發生，我們深表遺憾，并向所有這一丑惡研究的受害者道歉。” 令人困惑不解的是，領導這次實驗的公共衛生醫生約翰?C?科特勒居然日后又主持了塔斯基吉梅毒研究。在這項研究中，醫生故意讓患有梅毒的美國黑人男子幾十年都無法治愈。科特勒醫生在晚年一直為塔斯基斯研究辯護。 他未出版的危地馬拉研究一直塵封在匹茲堡大學的檔案館，直到最近才被醫學歷史學家里維爾比教授發現。里維爾比教授已經著有兩部關于塔斯基斯研究的書。 危地馬拉總統阿爾瓦羅?科洛姆上周四接到希拉里的電話，才得知這次實驗。他稱自己感到“毛骨悚然”、“慘無人道”。危地馬拉稱將與美國合作調查，同時也會開展獨立調查。 美國國家衛生研究院主任弗朗西斯?S?科林斯醫生稱，這些實驗是“醫藥歷史上的黑暗篇章”。根據現在的規定，開展受聯邦資助的研究時，“嚴禁”在沒有告知并征得研究對象同意前就對其實施感染。 相關閱讀 （中國日報網英語點津 實習生沈清 編輯：Julie） |
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Vocabulary: inmate:（監獄、精神病院等的）被收容者；囚犯；住院者 venereal: 性交的，性病的 syphilis: 梅毒 contract: 得（病），沾染（習慣），負（債） antibiotic: 抗生素 reprehensible: 應該譴責的，應斥責的 under the guise of: 假借，以……為幌子 abhorrent: disgusting, loathsome, or repellent（令人憎惡的，可惡的） unearth: to bring to public notice; uncover（發現，揭露） |
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