ETHICALLY IMPOSSIBLE” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948 
305 John Cutler. (1955, Lebruary 24). Final Syphilis Report. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0000649. A 
contemporaneous newspaper article noted that the Psychiatric Hospital “is far from possessing all the 
characteristics inherent in a first-rate institution; nevertheless, as far as the scientific and material, little 
by little modifications and reforms have been introduced that have converted it into something of a bit of 
paradise in comparison to what it was three decades ago, when the institution merited the name ‘house 
of the insane,’ as it was nothing more than a place in which to pile all those who for any reason could be 
qualified as crazy.” (1947). Servivio Quirurgico para el Hospital de Neuro-Psiquiatria. Diario de Centro 
America. July 21, 1947. 
306 Ibid. 
307 PCSBI. (2011). Subject Database. 
308 John Cutler. (1955, February 24). Final Syphilis Report. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0000669. 
309 It is unclear whether the leprosy study could have provided a useful comparison. Furthermore, as with 
his retrospective claims about the decision to begin testing in children, the timeline for this statement is 
questionable. Intentional exposure work (requiring accompanying serological diagnostic testing) began in 
the Psychiatric Hospital in May 1947. John Cutler. (1955, February 24). Final Syphilis Report. PCSBI HSPI 
Archives, CTLR_0000694. 
310 Cutler Documents (1953). Report on Serologic Follow-up on Patients Done at CDC in 1953, Samples sent 
from Guatemala. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0001433-76. These numbers are rough as there are subject 
data missing making an exact count impossible (e.g., for some subjects only the subject number [without 
a name] is included; as there are several subjects with the same number it is impossible to tell whether it is 
the same subject being tested twice or the data represents two different subjects). 
311 See, e.g., Cutler Documents. (1953). Report on Serologic Follow-up on Patients Done at CDC in 1953, 
Samples sent from Guatemala. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0001436. 
312 Ibid. 
313 PCSBI. (2011). Subject Database. 
314 Cutler Documents. (1947-1948). Guatemala Journal Studies with the Military (GC). Clinical notebook. 
PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0000611. Dr. Cutler’s retrospective counts of his experiments, however, are 
inconsistent. According to his contemporaneous notes, subjects were exposed to gonorrhea on 67 different 
days. PCSBI. (2011). Subject Database. 
315 John Cutler. (1955, February 24). Final Syphilis Report. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR_0000694- 
746. Dr. Cutler’s retrospective counts of his experiments, however, are inconsistent. According to his 
contemporaneous notes, subjects were exposed to syphilis on 52 different days. PCSBI. (2011). Subject 
Database. 
316 John Cutler, (n.d.). Chancroid Experiment. Report. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0000947. Dr. Cutler’s 
retrospective counts of his experiments, however, are inconsistent. According to his contemporaneous 
notes, subjects were exposed to chancroid on four different days. PCSBI. (2011). Subject Database. 
317 Dr. Cutler’s count of experiments is incomplete as it does not include several experiments conducted to 
assess infection methods and many individual observational inoculations presumably were excluded as 
they were not part of a larger controlled study. See, e.g., John Cutler. (1955, February 24). Final Syphilis 
Report. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0000885; and Cutler Documents. Insane Asylum Asilo Des 
Alienados and Prison Patient Records, (various Dates). Subjects Note Card. PCSBI HSPI Archives, 
CTLR 0004157. In addition, the contemporaneous notes Dr. Cutler took often contradict the data included 
in the reports he later wrote. See, e.g., Cutler Documents. (1947). [Subjects names]. Subjects Note Cards 
and Lists. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR_0001806, CTLR_0001809, CTLR_0001810, CTLR 0001812, 
CTLR 0001813, CTLR 0001816; but see John Cutler. (1952, October 29). Experimental Studies in 
Gonorrhea. Report. PCSBI HSPI Archives, CTLR 0001299. For this reason, the Commission report will 
discuss days of experiments rather than number of experiments for accuracy. This day count will not 
include days on which commercial sex workers were infected as Dr. Cutler did not consider these instances 
experiments or the sex workers as subjects. 
318 PCSBI. (2011). Subject Database. “Exposure” to an STD is not the same as being “infected” with an STD. 
Subjects who were exposed to an STD by the researchers ran the risk of becoming infected with that 
STD — however many of the subjects that were exposed to an STD were not in fact infected. 
180 
