Report calls 1940s syphilis research 'unconscionable'
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A report on the medical research of John C. Cutler in Guatemala in the 1940s released this morning by a presidential commission concludes that the syphilis experiments he conducted for the U.S. Public Health Service involved "unconscionable" violations of ethics.
"The individuals who approved, conducted, facilitated and funded these experiments are morally culpable to various degrees for these wrongs," said Amy Gutmann, chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
"The best thing we can do when faced with a dark chapter is to bring it to light," she said. "The commission worked to provide an unvarnished ethical analysis to both honor the victims and to make sure it never happens again."
The commission released its final report after first delivering a briefing on its contents at the White House.
Dr. Cutler, an assistant U.S. surgeon general and later an acting dean and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, intentionally infected soldiers, prostitutes, mental patients and prisoners with syphilis from 1946 to 1948. His boss at the time was U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parran, who came to Pitt in 1948 to start the Graduate School of Public Health.
After reviewing more than 125,000 pages of documents and traveling to Guatemala, the commission's 12 full-time researchers concluded that Dr. Cutler and his colleagues conducted diagnostic tests, including blood draws and spinal taps, on up to 5,500 Guatemalan inmates, soldiers, prostitutes, orphans and school children. Of those, about 1,300 inmates, mental patients, soldiers and prostitutes were deliberately exposed to syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid.
First Published September 13, 2011 12:21 pm
