Washington (AFP) - A US federal judge has ruled pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller Foundation must face a $1 billion lawsuit over their roles in a 1940s medical experiment that saw hundreds of Guatemalans infected with syphilis.
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Guatemalan victims and relatives in 2015 launched a civil suit over the US-led
experiment, which aimed to find out if penicillin could be used to prevent
sexually transmitted diseases.
They
claimed the experiment "subjected them or their family members to medical
experiments in Guatemala without their knowledge or consent during the 1940s
and 1950s."
US District
Judge Theodore Chuang rejected arguments from the defense that a recent Supreme
Court decision protecting foreign companies from US lawsuits over human rights
abuses abroad also applied to domestic firms.
The judge
said allowing the case to move forward would "promote harmony" by
giving the foreign plaintiffs the opportunity to seek justice in US courts.
The
unethical experiment was revealed by Doctor Susan Reverby, a professor at
Wellesley College in the US.
She came
across the work while researching notes left by John Charles Cutler, a public
health services sexual disease specialist who headed up the experiment,
following his death in 2003.
Cutler and
his fellow researchers enrolled soldiers, mental patients, prostitutes,
convicts and others in Guatemala for the study.
Former US
president Barack Obama apologized for the experiments in 2010, while his
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the experiments as "clearly
unethical."
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