the victims of a horrific medical experiment run by the united states in guatemala that deliberately infected individuals with syphilis in order to test drugs and study the disease are now suing johns hopkins university .
the lawsuit , which has 750 plantiffs and includes victims and their families , is seeking $ 1billion , claiming that officials from hopkins approved the study at the time and even helped to plan and monitor it as it ran from 1945 to 1956 .
the few victims who are still alive were almost all children when they were unknowingly infected , and many among them were orphans .