GUATEMALA EXPERIMENTS 1946-1948 
II 
populations. The researchers attributed this finding to the leprosy itself 
causing false positive results for syphilis. 304 
Psychiatric Hospital 
The researchers also conducted serologic research in the Psychiatric Hospital 
of Guatemala. 305 Dr. Carlos Salvado, the director of the Psychiatric Hospital 
(whom the U.S. government later paid to complete follow-up work after Dr. 
Cutler left) invited the group to begin serologic screening of patients and new 
admissions. Dr. Cutler later explained that this presented an opportunity for 
the researchers to do regular and repeated serologic screening in a defined 
population of adults over time. 306 A total of 642 psychiatric subjects were 
involved in STD (syphilis, gonorrhea, and chancroid) diagnostic research, 
many of whom were engaged repeatedly for different interventions. 30 " In 
addition to blood testing and lumbar punctures, the researchers performed 
hundreds of cisternal punctures on psychiatric patients for serological 
purposes. 308 Writing in 1955, Dr. Cutler claimed to need these data from the 
Psychiatric Hospital because of failure in the children experiments. 309 
The serological testing in the Psychiatric Hospital continued after Dr. Cutler 
left Guatemala. Drs. Funes and Salvado managed continuing observations 
for PHS and shipped samples back to the United States for analysis. Blood 
draws and lumbar punctures continued in approximately 250 subjects from 
the institution, 310 several of whom tested positive for syphilis. 311 Treatment 
was not documented. These observations continued through at least 1953. 312 
Intentional Exposure Experiments 
Overview 
Six months after Dr. Cutler arrived in Guatemala, the intentional exposure and 
prophylaxis experiments began. They continued from February 1947 through 
October 1948. 313 In total, Dr. Cutler reported 32 gonorrhea experiments, 314 
17 syphilis experiments, 315 and one chancroid experiment 316 (see Table 4). 31 A 
total of 1,308 people including commercial sex workers, soldiers, prisoners, and 
psychiatric patients were involved in the exposure experiments. 318 The ages of 
subjects involved in the exposure experiments ranged from 10 to 72 years, with 
the average subject being in his/her 20s. 319 Of that group, 678 individuals can 
be documented as receiving some form of treatment. 320 
41 
