“ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
punctures he performed, “none resulted fatally. . .” 529 Moreover, Dr. Cutler 
admitted that some subjects experienced “a simple bacterial meningitis” mani- 
fested by headaches and stiffness of the neck. 530 The inoculum made from 
lesions of other syphilitic subjects “was certain to contain secondary bacte- 
rial invaders...,” he said. 531 Dr. Cutler reported that the symptoms subsided 
within a few days. 532 Several cisternal puncture subjects developed secondary 
syphilis and neurosyphilis, and one subject lost the use of her legs for over 
two months. 533 
Fellow researcher William Curth, when he was in Guatemala in the 1930s, 
deemed it “unwise” to attempt any type of spinal puncture “[o]wing to the 
many superstitions of the Indians.” 534 Dr. Cutler reported in 1933, however, 
that the Psychiatric Hospital subjects “minded the procedure so little” that they 
lined up “day after day” for the puncture, to receive the reward of two packs of 
cigarettes. 535 There is no contemporaneous evidence to support this claim. 
In February 1948, Surgeon General Thomas Parran, who supported the work 
in Guatemala, was replaced by Dr. Leonard Scheele. Dr. Mahoney told Dr. 
Cutler that they had “lost a very good friend and that it appears to be advis- 
able to get our ducks in line.” 536 Because of that, Dr. Mahoney said, “we 
feel that the Guatemala project should be brought to the innocuous stage as 
rapidly as possible.” 537 
The researchers, however, continued with syphilis experiments in the 
Psychiatric Hospital through October 1948. They moved beyond their 
original questions and began testing issues such as the validity of accidental 
needle stick procedures for needles exposed to syphilis in clinics in the United 
States. 538 One subject underwent scarification followed by injection into the 
dorsum of the penis in hopes of producing a representative chancre specifically 
for the purpose of taking photographs. 539 In July, the researchers conducted 
one of the last Psychiatric Hospital intentional exposure experiments, which 
involved inoculating, through “a number of different techniques,” all of the 
subjects who had been protected by a prophylaxis or had simply failed to 
become infected in previous experiments. 540 
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