“ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
occasionally received alcohol to “lower resistance to infection,” 361 no reason is 
stated for giving alcohol to the commercial sex workers. 
At least four of the sex workers presented 
with naturally occurring gonorrhea, but Dr. 
Cutler concluded that it was “impossible 
to wait for chance of infection with gonor- 
rhea.” 362 The researchers artificially inoculated 
four commercial sex workers several times. 363 
Some contemporaneous notes for gonorrhea 
experiments show $25 payments to commer- 
cial sex workers for particular experiments, 364 
although the majority of the notes do not 
document any compensation. 365 
The researchers artificially inoculated 
commercial sex workers with gonorrhea 
by moistening a cotton-tipped swab with 
pus from an acute case of gonorrheal 
urethritis in the male, inserting the swab 
around... with considerable vigor.” 366 All of 
the commercial sex workers infected in this 
manner reportedly contracted the disease. 
None “showed evidence of acute infection 
such as a rich outpouring of thick yellow pus from the cervix or by signs of 
pelvic inflammatory disease. . .[but] all of them showed evidence of infection 
by cervical discharge and excessive accumulation of secretion in the vagina,” 
and all were culture-positive. 367 Dr. Cutler later made at least one note 
saying that two of the women involved in the experiments “were eventually 
treated,” 368 but detailed treatment records, like those that exist for the other 
subject populations, do not exist for the commercial sex workers. 
The first gonorrhea experiment, on February 15, 1947, tested the effective- 
ness of Dr. Arnold’s penicillin/POB (a preparation of penicillin in a medium 
of peanut oil and beeswax to ensure a slow steady release prophylaxis) in 
a placebo-controlled trial of 15 men who were exposed to commercial sex 
into the woman’s cervix and “swabb[ing] it 
SUBJECT PROFILE: 
MARIA LUISA 
Maria Luisa was a commercial sex 
worker who went to the VDSPH, 
directed by Dr. Funes, on March 
13, 1947. She tested positive for 
gonorrhea when she arrived at the 
hospital and was subsequently 
referred by Dr. Funes to Dr. Cutler. 
On March 15, 1947, Maria Luisa was 
paid $25 and had sexual contact 
with seven men. During the following 
year, Maria Luisa was inoculated 11 
different times with many different 
strains of gonorrhea. While infected 
with gonorrhea she had 105 sexual 
contacts. 
There is no evidence that Maria 
Luisa received any treatment for 
her acute gonorrhea during the 
experiments. 
46 
