ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
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Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1943, Lebruary 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives 
NARA-II_0000178. 
Neither birth control nor STD prophylaxis was provided to women in the Armed Lorces in 1942. See 
Considerations for Utilizing Women on a Station, (n.d.). PCSBI HSPI Archives, NAS 0000511. 
Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1943, February 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, 
NARA-II_0000177. 
Ibid. PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II_0000184-85. 
Ibid. PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II 0000183. While there is some discussion of homosexual sex among 
prisoners, the assumption was that most of the men were not sexually active while in prison. Proposed 
Plan of Procedure in the Study of Chemical Prophylaxis in Human Volunteers among Prison Inmates, 
reproduced in Minutes of a Conference on Human Experimentation in Gonorrhea Held Under the Auspices 
of the Subcommittee on Venereal Diseases. (1942, December 29). PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA- 
II 0000169. The various benefits of conducting research among prisoners had not gone unnoticed by other 
investigators; by the middle of the 20th century, a substantial number of medical experiments had been 
conducted in the United States using prisoners as subjects. Widespread prison research in the United States 
continued into the 1970s. See Bonham, V.H., Moreno, J.D. (2008). Research with captive populations: 
Prisoners, students, and soldiers. In Emanuel, E.E., et al. (Eds.). The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research 
Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 461-474; Moreno, J.D., op cit.; Harkness, J.M. (1996). 
Research Behind Bars: A History ofNontherapeutic Research on American Prisoners, Ph.D. dissertation, 
University of Wisconsin-Madison. 
Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1943, February 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, 
NARA-II 0000183. 
Ibid, PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II_0000184-85. 
Ibid. 
Ibid. 
Ibid, PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II_0000184. 
Ibid. Subsequent discussion between NRC and the Surgeon General of the Navy yielded the same result for 
different reasons. Military personnel were rejected, in part, because of the “impossibility of deliberately 
exposing military personnel to infection even when volunteering. . ..” Lewis H. Weed to Ross G. Harrison. 
(1943, March 2). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II_0000249. 
Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1943, February 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA- 
II 0000184. This statement establishes an important consideration, later disregarded, for not including 
psychiatric institution patients in STD research. It is unclear if Dr. Moore knew, or approved, the later use 
in Guatemala of individuals in the psychiatric hospital. Evidence shows that the initial plan for Guatemala, 
as presented to Moore and others in the Syphilis Study Section in March 1946, included use of prisoners 
only. John Cutler, Final Syphilis Report. (1955, February 24). PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR_0000643; 
John Cutler to John Mahoney (1947, January 7). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0001039. 
Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1943, February 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, 
NARA-II 0000185-86. 
Ibid, PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II_0000185. 
Ibid, PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA-II 0000186. 
Porter, H.H., et al. (1939). Social diseases at the crossroads. Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical 
Association 32: 54-61. 
Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1943, February 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, NARA- 
11 0000185-86. Some have suggested that few people actually saw either of those articles. See Harkness, 
J.M., op cit., pp. 124-25. 
Porter, H.H., op cit., pp. 54-61. 
Joseph E. Moore to A.N. Richards. (1942, February 1). Correspondence. PCSBI HSPI Archives, 
NARA-II 0000186. 
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