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In 1990, University of Pittsburgh Public Health Professor John C. Cutler delivered to the university's archives thousands of pages of documents and photographs about an unpublished research project that he ran in Guatemala for the U.S. and Guatemalan governments between 1946 and 1948. Duly cataloged, the files then sat in the library until the mid 2000s, when historian Susan Reverby began to read them as part of her book project on the Tuskegee syphilis studies.
Who knew that the infamous U.S. Public Health Service Study of Untreated Syphilis in Tuskegee, Alabama, had an off shore successor? Unlike Tuskegee, the Guatemala studies led by Dr. Cutler involved actual inoculation of sexually transmitted diseases and the paying of sex workers to transmit disease. Unsuspecting and unconsenting prisoners, soldiers, mental patients, and sex workers participated; only some were treated if and when they became infected.
In 2009, Professor Reverby returned to the Pittsburgh archive, and in 2010 she wrote up her findings on the Guatemala project. She shared her unpublished article with the late David Sencer, former director of the Centers for Disease Conrol (CDC), who gave the article to the current CDC leadership. The CDC prepared its own report and sent it, along with the Reverby article, up the chain of command to the White House. On Oct. 1, 2010, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton apologized to the Guatemalan government and President Obama telephoned then President Colom in Guatemala to explain. In the spotlight of worldwide media attention, presidential commissions in both countries undertook investigations, and survivors of the study filed suit against the U.S. government. The Guatemala study and its aftermath have urgently renewed debate about the ethics of clinical research involving human participants, especially research carried out with vulnerable populations and in the global arena.
In this Medical Center Hour, Susan Reverby discusses how her discovery of the Guatemala study files set in motion international investigative and diplomatic processes and what we can learn from this ethically immoral use of medical science. Bioethicist John Arras, a member of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, will comment on the commission's investigation and its 2011 report, Ethically impossible: STD research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948.
Physician-author Lisa Sanders, who writes the popular "Diagnosis" column in The New York Times Magazine and "Think Like a Doctor" blog for the New York Times, probes the crucial exchanges between doctor and patient that are at the heart of every medical mystery and its solution.
The Koppaka Family Foundation Lecture in Medical Humanities
In 1943, Albert Schatz, a young PhD student at New Jersey's Rutgers Agricultural College, was working on a wartime project testing bacteria from farmyard soil when he discovered streptomycin, a new antibiotic that was the first effective drug against the global killer tuberculosis. Schatz’s professor, Selman Waksman, claimed all credit for the discovery, calling Schatz a mere bench worker, and secretly enriched himself with royalties once the drug was patented by pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck. Schatz fought back in what was one of the most vicious battles ever for credit of a major scientific discovery. Schatz won the title of "co- discoverer" and a share of the royalties, but, in 1952, Waksman alone was awarded a Nobel Prize. Schatz disappeared into academic obscurity.
This Medical Center Hour features journalist Peter Pringle, whose recent book Experiment Eleven probes this gripping, scandalous story and its diverse global repercussions— for scientific inquiry and mentoring, for research ethics, and for the evolution of Big Pharma.
Co-presented with the History of the Health Sciences Lecture Series, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library
January 23, 2019
Joe Richman
Since 1996, the Radio Diaries project has been giving people audio recorders and working with them to report on their own lives and histories. Collaborating with teens and octogenarians, persons with chronic and terminal illness, prisoners and prison guards, gospel preachers and bra saleswomen, the famous and the unknown, the project tells extraordinary stories of ordinary life. With stories aired on NPR, BBC, This American Life, and its own podcast, Radio Diaries has pioneered a new form of citizen journalism and, along the way, garnered every major award in broadcast journalism. This Medical Center Hour welcomes Radio Diaries’ founding director, Joe Richman, to share stories and draw parallels with health care practice, where, daily, clinicians traffic in the “extraordinary stories of ordinary life.”
The Edward W. Hook Lecture in Medicine and the Arts / Medical Grand Rounds
Co-presented with the Department of Medicine, UVA
Fred Reno interviews Aileen Sevier, the Vice President of Strategy & Marketing for Early Mountain Vineyards. They discuss how her career pivoted into the wine industry, her approach to Wine Clubs, the process of sitting for the Master of Wine diploma, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Andrew Hodson, the owner and founder of Veritas Vineyard and Winery. They discuss his journey to found his winery and make a mark on Virginia winemaking with the help of his family.
Fred Reno interviews Christine, Dennis, and Nathan Vrooman of Ankida Ridge Vineyards. They discuss their journey to plant a vineyard, create delicious wines, and their approach to sustainable farming.
Fred Reno interviews Ben Jordan, the winemaker for Early Mountain Vineyards. They discuss how his wine career moved from California to Virginia, his thoughts on hybrid grapes, Early Mountain Vineyard’s Petit Manseng, and more.
Fred Reno interviews Bill Curtis, owner of Tastings Restaurant, Wine Bar and Wine Shop in Charlottesville, Virginia. They discuss his approach to cooking, the pioneers of Virginia winegrowing, and more.
