Disturbing STD Experiments on Guatemalans by U.S. Uncovered

This was detailed in a report published by the group, Physicians for Human Rights, and more can be read about what the report detailed here.

How does a society explain the continued existence of organizations and entities within government and society, which find it permissible to allow individuals to experiment on humans? That find it allowable to create excuses for such experimentation?

I posit it has everything to do with who the subjects are. Those aware of history know America was afraid of leftist movements taking power in Guatemala and threatening American interests. Blacks were suffering under Jim Crow Laws when the Tuskegee Experiments were carried out. Felons in prisons were criminals and understandably considered the lowest of humans on Earth. And, of course, the detainees at Guantanamo and other prisons are and have been regarded as "terrorists."

When humans dehumanize other humans, any form of brutality can be committed. Any callous act can be carried out.

It isn't just that there are a few bad apples that produce these atrocious episodes in American history. As Philip Zimbardo would likely suggest, systems in place political, economical, and legal turn people into monsters.

Americans can shrug off revelations of torture and abuse and medical experiments on detainees but, understand, that episode is no anomaly. It will happen again. And, since Americans did not raise their voices loud enough and demand accountability and justice when Bush Administration officials were found to have created legal justification for torture, abuse and medical experimentation, atrocities will likely occur again in the not-so-distant future -- atrocities that one can compare to the Tuskegee Experiments and thes new revelations on U.S. experiments on Guatemalans.

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