US judge asks Vatican to serve court paper to pope, US STD experiments

also:
U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments
Texas Teacher Accused of Taping Sex With as Many as 70 Children

US judge asks Vatican to serve court paper to pope
By DINESH RAMDE , Associated Press
October 1, 2010 MILWAUKEE - A federal U.S. judge is asking the Vatican to cooperate in serving the pope and two other top officials with court papers that stem from decades-old allegations of sexual abuse by a priest in Wisconsin.

The request is an incremental step in a lawsuit that accuses the officials of conspiring to keep the allegations against the Milwaukee priest quiet. The Vatican is not obliged to comply with the request.

When faced with similar requests the Vatican has made service difficult, time-consuming and expensive by insisting, for example, that documentation be translated into Latin, one of the Vatican's official languages.
http://www.startribune.com/local/104159973.html
also at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101001/ap_on_re_us/us_church_abuse_vatican_lawsuit_3

U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments
Government researchers infected patients with syphilis, gonorrhea without their consent in the 1940s
By Robert Bazell Chief science and health correspondent NBC News NBC News 10/1/10 U.S. government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago.
Many of those infected were encouraged to pass the infection onto others as part of the study.

About one third of those who were infected never got adequate treatment.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered extensive apologies for actions taken by the U.S. Public Health Service....
The episode raises inevitable comparisons to the infamous Tuskegee experiment, the Alabama study where hundreds of African-American men were told they were being treated for syphilis, but in fact were denied treatment. That U.S. government study lasted from 1932 until press reports revealed it in 1972.

The Guatemala experiments, which were conducted between 1946 and 1948, never provided any useful information and the records were hidden.

They were discovered by Susan Reverby, a professor of women's studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and were posted on her website. http://www.wellesley.edu/WomenSt/fac_reverby.html


According to Reverby’s report, the Guatemalan project was co-sponsored by the U.S. Public Health Service, the NIH, the Pan-American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the Pan American Health Organization) and the Guatemalan government. The experiments involved 696 subjects — male prisoners and female patients in the National Mental Health Hospital.
The researchers were trying to determine whether the antibiotic penicillin could prevent syphilis infection, not just cure it, Reverby writes. After the subjects were infected with the syphilis bacteria — through visits with prostitutes who had the disease and direct inoculations — it is unclear whether they were later cured or given proper medical care, Reverby notes. While most of the patients got treatment, experts estimate as many as a one-third, did not.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39456324/ns/health-sexual_health/


Texas Teacher Accused of Taping Sex With as Many as 70 Children
September 30, 2010 FoxNews.com An El Paso, Texas, high school dance teacher was jailed without bond Thursday on charges of sexual exploitation of minors and possessing child pornography, allegedly including 200 videotapes of himself having sex with as many as 70 children, some of whom were elementary school age.
Federal agents testified that they found the videos in the home of 34-year-old Marco Alferez. The agents said the videos showed Alferez having sex with children as young as elementary school age, the El Paso Times reported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Gilbert Campa testified he found 12 VHS tapes, each about four to six hours long, and 107 8-mm tapes of Alferez having sex with children. Campa said ICE agents have been able to identify 65 to 70 victims in the homemade videos, and it appeared that Alferez tried hide the camera during the sexual acts....
Campa also testified Alferez admitted downloading child pornography, as well as making the videos of himself with children.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/09/30/texas-teacher-accused-taping-sex-children/