GUATEMALA EXPERIMENTS 1946-1948 
II 
In May 1947, Dr. Cutler pointed Dr. Mahoney to a “Note on Science” that 
appeared in the April 27 New York Times regarding a new scientific advancement 
by syphilologist Dr. Harry Eagle (member of the Syphilis Study Section that 
approved the Guatemala project) and others. 582 The New York Times note read: 
“Drs. Harry Eagle, Harold J. Magnuson and Ralph Fleischman 
of the United States Public Health Service, the Johns Hopkins 
School of Hygiene and the University of North Carolina have 
discovered that small doses of penicillin injected within a few 
days after exposure, prevent syphilis from developing. This case 
holds good for rabbits, but no tests on human beings have yet been 
made. To settle the human issue quickly it would be necessary to 
shoot living syphilis germs into human bodies, just as Dr. Eagle 
shot them into rabbits. Since this is ethically impossible , it may take 
years to gather the information needed ” (emphasis added). 583 
Waldemar Kaempffert, the New York Times science editor, authored the 
note. 584 Between the time when the note was published and when Dr. Cutler 
called Dr. Mahoney’s attention to it, the researchers in Guatemala had 
begun injecting “living syphilis germs into human bodies” 585 — exactly what 
Kaempffert had asserted was “ethically impossible.” 
Eight days after the publication of the note in the New York Times , Dr. 
Mahoney wrote Dr. Cutler to say that Dr. Van Slyke had made a “hurried 
trip from Washington” to tell Dr. Mahoney that the same physician discussed 
in the note, Dr. Eagle, was, despite the conclusion in the New York Times : 
“...about to complain to the Surgeon General [Parran] that I have 
not been extremely enthusiastic about allowing him to enter the 
Guatemala study. As you may know, he has done considerable 
animal work in prophylaxis in syphilis by use of penicillin and 
can only prove the thesis by a human experiment.” 586 
Dr. Mahoney opposed allowing Dr. Eagle to join Dr. Cutler in Guatemala 
because he “could not see wherein a study of that kind would have other than 
an academic value if an injection technique was employed....” 587 In addition, 
Dr. Mahoney “thought it would be of still less importance if an oral prepara- 
tion of penicillin was to be studied as a prophylactic agent.” 588 
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