Read more in Public Citizen's December Health Letter From 1946 to 1948, the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) conducted highly unethical medical research in Guatemala (1). Some of the research involved deliberately infecting people with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as syphilis and gonorrhea, without their consent (2). In 2011, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues concluded, "It is clear that many of the actions undertaken within the Guatemala experiments were morally wrong." (3) Many people believe that such government-funded research could never take place again.