Historical and Contextual Perspectives of the Guatemala Studies

The Guatemala studies occurred within a historical context.  Although written informed consent was not common practice during the time that these studies were conducted, there had developed standards of clinical research which included the issues of autonomy and consent.  These concepts were further elaborated during the Nuremberg trials in 1945-46. This presentation will provide a historical context to the ethics and practice of clinical research in the late 1940s.  The Guatemala studies will also be compared and contrasted to the Tuskegee experiments, which were contemporaneous