“ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
the research in which you are presently engaged, the Bureau in cooperation 
with health authorities of Guatemala would utilize the Laboratory as a training 
center for serologists and technicians and for standardization of other laborato- 
ries in Central America.” Dr. Mahoney was equally enthusiastic, arguing that 
“this culmination is the most desirable possible and. . .the laboratory should be 
capable of extending a helpful service in the future.” 565 Dr. Mahoney assisted 
in this regard, as is explained further in this report below, by identifying and 
facilitating the move of Ms. Genevieve Stout from the PHS to PASB to manage 
the laboratory in Guatemala after Dr. Cutler left. 
Race and Secrecy during the Guatemala Experiments 
Issues of Race 
Dr. Cutler did not discuss the race of his experimental subjects as an ethical 
issue in his correspondence or reports, but race, as understood in that era, 
was clearly an important component of the Guatemala experiments. At the 
time, many physicians believed that syphilis affected different races differ- 
ently. For example, Surgeon General Thomas Parran, described syphilis as 
being “biologically different” in African Americans, and said that African 
American women “remain[ed] infectious two and one-half times as long as 
the white woman.” 566 In addition, the belief in some quarters that African 
Americans were sexually promiscuous was used to bolster arguments that 
African Americans were more likely to contract syphilis, and against treating 
the disease in that population. 567 These convictions played a role in the PHS 
Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which Dr. Cutler also was involved as a primary 
researcher in the 1950s. 568 At Tuskegee, PHS doctors told syphilitic African 
American men from Macon County, Alabama, that they would receive free 
health care for their “bad blood.” While doctors monitored the progress of the 
disease, the PHS doctors provided no treatment during the span of the experi- 
ment (1932-1972). The belief that syphilis was widespread among African 
Americans provided justification for the experiment to continue long after 
penicillin was proved to cure syphilis: “[a]s sickness replaced health as the 
normal condition of the [African American] race, something was lost from 
the sense of horror and urgency with which physicians had defined disease.” 569 
While Dr. Cutler never discusses sexual promiscuity in his final reports, 
he does partially account for the low gonorrhea transmission rate by the 
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