Mining bodies: U.S. medical experimentation in Guatemala during the twentieth century
Crafts, Lydia
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/105876
Description
Title
Mining bodies: U.S. medical experimentation in Guatemala during the twentieth century
Author(s)
Crafts, Lydia
Issue Date
2019-06-27
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Hoganson, Kristin L.
Reagan, Leslie J.
Committee Member(s)
Dávila, Jerry
Hogarth, Rana
Carey, David
Department of Study
History
Discipline
History
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
U.S. empire, medicine, experimentation, Central America
Abstract
Mining Bodies explores the history of U.S. experimentation in the Central American and Caribbean region during the twentieth century. It focuses in particular on experiments conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS), the Pan American Sanitary Bureau (PASB), and the Guatemalan government during the 1940s in Guatemala on sexually-transmitted infections (STIS). During these experiments, U.S. and Guatemalan doctors intentionally exposed at least 1500 Guatemalans to STIs. The doctors did not provide available treatments nor receive informed consent from the people they experimented upon. This dissertation argues that these experiments arose from a medical research network created by U.S. and Latin American institutions in Guatemala during the twentieth century. They also resulted from systemic factors that included U.S. imperialism in the Central American and Caribbean region, a culture of medicine in the United States and Guatemala, health professionals’ paternalism, and racism. As this dissertation explores the historical factors that enabled doctors to construe Guatemalans as medical subjects, it also highlights the imprint that medical experimentation continues to have on Guatemalans continuing in the present day.
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