“ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
As a direct result of the decisions and actions of the PHS researchers and 
their superiors, profoundly vulnerable persons, some in the saddest and most 
despairing states, had their bodies systematically and repeatedly violated. An 
intense and uncritical commitment to advancing knowledge under convenient 
conditions does not account for the suspension of moral sensitivity that 
should have been stimulated by the suffering of their fellow persons, suffering 
that the researchers themselves in some cases grievously aggravated. 
It is clear that many of the actions undertaken within the Guatemala 
experiments were morally wrong. The Commission further concludes that 
the individuals who approved, conducted, facilitated, and funded these 
experiments are morally culpable to various degrees for these wrongs. The 
Commission reaches these conclusions on the basis of basic moral principles, 
the moral norms that were articulated at the time, the strikingly contrasting 
practices in Terre Haute, and the statements of the protagonists themselves 
during the period of work in Guatemala. Our moral norms today also 
endorse this judgment for reasons fully compatible with the norms — and the 
reasoning supporting them — that were available to the researchers and public 
officials involved in the Guatemalan experiments. This is not a judgment that 
the Commission reaches lightly, but one that it feels compelled to reach by the 
facts of the case and by the logic of the moral argument. 
Although some individuals are more blameworthy than others, the blame for 
this episode cannot be said to fall solely on the shoulders of one or two indi- 
viduals. The unconscionable events that unfolded in Guatemala in the years 
1946 to 1948 also represented an institutional failure of the sort that modern 
requirements of transparency and accountability are designed to prevent. In 
the final analysis, institutions are comprised of individuals who, however 
flawed, are expected to exercise sound judgment in the pursuit of their institu- 
tional mission. This is all the more true and important when those individuals 
hold privileged and powerful roles as professionals and public officials. One 
lesson of the Guatemala experiments, never to take ethics for granted, let 
alone confuse ethical principles with burdensome obstacles to be overcome 
or evaded, is a sobering one for our own and all subsequent generations. We 
should be ever vigilant to ensure that such reprehensible exploitation of our 
fellow human beings is never repeated. 
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