Thanks and One More for the Road

Thanks to Dan and the Prawfsblawg crew for allowing me to blog the past few weeks. And thanks for the commentators for making it great fun (who would have guessed bathroom divisions would be more controversial than abortion?).

Yesterday, the American Journal of Public Health put online a paper I wrote with  Dean Eli Adashi  "In the Wake of the Guatemala: The Case for Voluntary Compensation and Remediation," which the journal  accepted through peer review a few months back. Unfortunately, you need to be a subscriber to access it, but here is the abstract:

Recently unearthed records reveal that between 1946 and 1948, researchers with the US Public Health Service engaged in nonconsensual inoculation of vulnerable Guatemalan populations with syphilis, gonorrhea, or chancroid.

The US government has issued formal public apologies to the Guatemalan government and its people, and the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has been tasked with reviewing the historical record and the adequacy of protection of human research participants.

We argue that the US response is insufficient and call for a restitution program directed at the aggrieved parties. We review the lessons of two earlier analogous cases and propose guiding principles upon which such a restitution program could be crafted with the Guatemalan people in mind. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print December 15, 2011: e1-e3. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300543)

Thanks again for having me, Glenn