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= Guatemalan Syphilis Experiments =

Dr. John F. Mahoney
Prior to his involvement in the Guatemalan Syphilis experiment, Mahoney graduated from The University of Pittsburgh medical school in 1914. By 1918 he was titled the Assistant Surgeon at the United States Public Health Service. In 1929, Dr. Mahoney worked as the Direction of the Venereal Disease Research Lab in Staten Island, where he led the Terre Haute Prison Experiments where Dr. Cutler first assisted him. After stopping the Terre Haute experiments for lack of accurate infection of subjects with gonorrhea, Dr. Mahoney moved on to study the effects of penicillin on syphilis. His research found huge success for penicillin treatments and the US army embraced it in STD prescription. Although this seemed promising, Mahoney and his collaborators questioned the long term effectiveness of eliminating the disease altogether in individuals.

Mahoney, Cutler, and other researchers, felt that a smaller, more controlled group of individuals to study would be more helpful in finding this cure. This led to the use of citizens in Guatemala as subjects. Mahoney was a member of the syphilis study section that approved the Guatemala research Grant. During the Guatemala syphilis study, Mahoney was the primary supervisor of the experiments and he would receive Cutler's reports on the experiments. In 1946, while the syphilis study was ongoing, John Mahoney was awarded the Lasker award for discovering penicillin as a cure for syphilis.

After completion of the Guatemala Syphilis study, John F. Mahoney became the chairman of the World Health Organization in 1948. In 1950, he took the position of Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health where he worked until his death in 1957.

John Charles Cutler
The experiments were led by United States Public Health Service physician John Charles Cutler, who had earlier participated in the similar Terre Haute prison experiments, in which volunteer prisoners were infected with gonorrhea without their understanding. Cutler also took part in the late stages of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment where black Americans were lied to about getting available treatment for syphilis. Over 100 people died due to lack of treatment. In a 1993 documentary about the Tuskegee syphilis study titled “Deadly Deception,” John Charles Cutler defends his position saying, “It was important that they were supposedly untreated, and it would be undesirable to go ahead and use large amounts of penicillin to treat the disease, because you'd interfere with the study.” While the Tuskegee experiment followed the natural progression of syphilis in those already infected, in Guatemala, doctors deliberately infected healthy people with the diseases, some of which can be fatal if untreated. The goal of the study seems to have been to determine the effect of penicillin in the prevention and treatment of venereal diseases. The researchers paid prostitutes infected with syphilis to have sex with prisoners, while other subjects were infected by directly inoculating them with the bacterium. Orphans as young as nine, soldiers, and mental patients were also used in the Guatemala Syphilis study. Through intentional exposure to gonorrhea, syphilis, and chancroid, a total of 1,308 people were involved in the experiments. Of that group, with an age range of 9-72, 678 individuals (52%) can be said to have received a form of treatment.[6] Hidden from the public, John Charles Cutler utilized healthy individuals in order to improve what he called "pure science."[6]

After the Guatemala Syphilis study, John Cutler went on to become Assistant Surgeon General in 1958. In 1967, he was appointed professor of International Health at the University of Pittsburgh and in 1968 he became acting dean of the Graduate School of Public Health. After his death in 2008, his roles in the Tuskegee experiment were leaked and he was stripped of his legacy.

Genevieve Stout
Genevieve Stout was a bacteriologist for the Pan American Sanitary Bureau who promoted and established serological research in Guatemalan laboratories. She initiated the VDRL (Venereal Disease Research Laboratory) and Training Center within Central America starting in 1948 and she stayed in Guatemala until 1951. Here she conducted several independent serological experiments with the help of Dr. Funes and Dr. Salvado for STD research following Dr. Cutler.

Dr. Carlos Salvado and Dr Juan Funes
Dr. Funes and Dr. Salvado were also employees of the Pan American Sanitary Bureau who remained in Guatemala until 1953 after the work of Dr. Cutler. Dr. Juan Funes was the Guatemalan physician that had the idea for the Guatemalan Syphilis study. In order to advance in their careers, they opted to stay and continue observations on subjects of the Syphilis experiments, including data collections from orphans, inmates, psychiatric patients, and school kids. These periodic data collections consisted of blood specimens and lumbar punctures from participants. Data was shipped backed to the United States where many of these blood samples tested positive for syphilis. [6]

Dr. funes was Chief of the Venereal Disease section at the Guatemalan National Department of Health and was responsible for referring sex workers with STDs from the Venereal Disease and Sexual Prophylaxis Hospital (VDSPH) to Dr. Cutler. Dr. Carlos Salvado was the director of the Psychiatric Hospital in Guatemala where parts of the syphilis study were conducted. Dr. Salvado was an active participant in the international exposure experiments.