CDC Report on Findings from the U.S. Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Disease Inoculation Study of 1946–1948, Based on Review of Archived Papers of John Cutler, MD, at the University of Pittsburgh

Abstract

From 1946–1948, the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) and the Pan American Sanitary Bureau collaborated with several government agencies in Guatemala on U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded studies involving deliberate exposure of human subjects with bacteria that cause sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Guatemalan partners included the Guatemalan Ministry of Health, the National Army of the Revolution, the National Mental Health Hospital, and the Ministry of Justice. Studies were conducted under the on-site direction of John C. Cutler, MD, in Guatemala City, who worked under the supervision of R.C. Arnold, MD, and John F. Mahoney, MD, of the USPHS VDRL in Staten Island, New York. The primary local collaborator was Dr. Juan Funes, chief of the VD control division of the Guatemalan Sanidad Publica. The work by Dr. Cutler and VDRL colleagues was recently brought to light by Professor Susan Reverby of Wellesley College, as a result of archival work conducted as part of the research of her 2009 book on PHS syphilis studies, Examining Tuskegee.