“ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
the conference agreed that the investigators should try one more approach, 
involving particular “colony types” of gonorrhea, and decided that if that 
did not work it was probably time to discontinue the study. 158 Each infection 
method yielded unsatisfactory results. 
In June 1944, Dr. Mahoney reported to Dr. Moore’s subcommittee that he 
would not be continuing the work. 159 Describing his feelings about this deci- 
sion later, Dr. Cutler referred to what a “blow” it had been “to discontinue the 
Terre Haute project.” 160 The experiments ended a month later in July 1944, 
10 months after they began. Dr. Mahoney attributed this decision to the 
inability to reliably induce infection. In his final report, he concluded: “In 
spite of the use of different strains of Neisseria gonorrhea , modifications in 
methods of cultivating the organism and of inoculation, it was found impos- 
sible to infect with a degree of regularity which would be required in the 
testing of prophylactic agents.” 161 
A draft of a history of the OSRD, written in 1946, explains, “[ejfforts were 
made to produce experimental gonorrhea in these volunteers by almost every 
conceivable expedient except by the intraurethral inoculation of pus taken directly 
from the cervix or urethra of infected females or by the natural method of infec- 
tion — sexual intercourse ’ (emphasis added). 162 OSRD’s document includes no 
comment on whether the “natural method of infection,” which was pursued 
in Guatemala in 1947, would be an appropriate next step. But it did observe 
that the scientific questions pursued in Terre Haute remained unanswered. 
“It is still unknown,” the document states, “whether any prophylactic agent, 
including the silver proteinate the armed forces have used for thirty-five years, 
[has] any value in the prevention of this disease.” 163 
Drs. Mahoney, Van Slyke, Cutler, and Blum published the results of the 
experiments in the American Journal of Syphilis and Gonorrhea in January 
1946, around the same time that plans for work in Guatemala were devel- 
oping. 164 The researchers concluded that “[n]one of the exposure techniques 
employed proved capable of producing disease with a consistency considered 
to be adequate for a study of experimental prophylaxis.” 165 They did, however, 
note “the most effective method of conveying infection to volunteers was... 
the direct transference of secretions from the infected patient to the urethra 
of normal volunteers.” 166 They also observed “a significantly lower rate of 
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