BACKGROUND 
I 
With collective support from the highest echelons of the nation’s medical 
establishment, and with the concurrence of the Attorney General, Dr. Bush 
approved the experiment in early March. 122 Only four federal prisons had 
appropriate medical facilities. 123 The federal penitentiaries in Terre Haute, 
Atlanta, New York State, and Leavenworth were all considered, but Terre 
Haute had the best medical facilities. 124 Dr. Parran had already identified the 
high-quality medical facilities available as one of the benefits of conducting 
the experiment in a federal prison, 125 and Terre Haute offered the best option 
for capitalizing on that benefit. 
Dr. Bush directed that PHS conduct the experiment rather than the univer- 
sity-based research team of Drs. Carpenter and Cohn. 126 Where previously 
the PHS role was limited, like that of the U.S. Army and Navy, to simply 
endorsing the scientific merit and opining on ethical and legal limitations 
of Moore’s NRC proposal and the university-based research, it now became 
the lead for the work. In April 1943, Dr. R.A. Vonderlehr, a PHS Assistant 
Surgeon General, wrote to Dr. Moore regarding PHS’s new role. 127 A PHS 
investigator leading the experiments would also assure support from the 
Bureau of Prisons. He explained: 
“Mr. James Bennett of the Bureau of Prisons has lost interest in the 
proposed project. . .Mr. Bennett thinks a great deal of the Public 
Health Service and if we assure him that the investigation will be 
done by regular officers in our Service I believe he will show much 
more interest than he has evinced in recent weeks.” 128 
Within PHS, responsibility for conducting the research fell to the VDRL. The 
VDRL arose in 1927 under the PHS Venereal Disease Division, led by Dr. 
Thomas Parran, who later became the Surgeon General. 129 A small laboratory 
was set up within the U.S. Marine Hospital in Staten Island, New York, that 
conducted laboratory experiments for the purpose of studying methods of 
treating syphilis, and gonorrhea. 130 Clinical studies were also undertaken 
with the cooperation of the hospital staff. 131 
Dr. John F. Mahoney led the laboratory, with Dr. Cassius J. Van Slyke serving as 
the Associate Director. 132 Dr. Mahoney, a 1914 graduate of Marquette Univer- 
sity School of Medicine, had joined PHS in 1917 as a scientific assistant. 133 In 
1918, he was commissioned as an Assistant Surgeon in the PHS Commissioned 
19 
