Tuskegee Experiment

Republic of Guatemala issued a polite request for full disclosure on how United States scientists deliberately infected hundreds of people here with sexually transmitted diseases from 1946-1948.

"All of the data has been requested officially, but it is still at the university where they found the archives," President Alvaro Colom said of the cases of 1,500 Guatemalans, who were used unwittingly in test that some locals have likened to Nazi's experiments.

In a phone talk with Guatemala President  on Friday, US President Barack Obama expressed his deep regret for the experiment conducted by US public health researchers six decades ago and apologized "to all those affected."

The study, which was never published, came to light this year after Wellesley College Prof.Susan Reverby stumbled upon archived documents outlining the 1940s experiment led by controversial US public health DR.John Cutler.

His fellow researchers enrolled people in Guatemala, including mental patients, for the study, which aimed to find out if penicillin, relatively new in the 1940s, could be used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.

Dr.John Cutler, was also involved in a highly disputed study known as the TuskegeeExperiment in which hundreds of African American men with syphilis were observed but given no treatment for 40 years, between 1932 and 1972.

Guatemala President, who has formed a panel to investigate, said it was "important for Guatemala as a nation to get the investigation done as soon as possible."

At least one client died during the experiments, while it is not clear whether the death was from the tests or from an underlying medical problem.