You've probably already heard: last Friday President Obama called President Alvaro Colom of Guatemala to apologize for a public health outrage committed 64 years ago. In 1946, American doctors, with the support of the Public Health Service, conducted experiments on prisoners, the insane, soldiers, and prostitutes, who were initially used to infect the prisoners. Though the institutions and governments involved gave consent, none of the subjects did. In all, 696 people were purposefully infected. The study lasted two years and produced very few and very meaningless findings, which were dismissed or forgotten until last year,...