Wikipedia Guatemala Syphilis Study Continued: individuals were monitored for symptoms or became a part of the experiment through natural infection.[13] The populations involved consisted of child and adult commercial sex workers, prisoners, soldiers, orphans, leprosy patients, and mental hospital patients.[12][18] Many of these subjects were Indigenous Guatemalans and Guatemalans living in poverty.[13] Their ages ranged from 10 to 72, though the average subject was in their 20s.
The Centers for Disease Control and Preventionacknowledges that "the design and conduct of the studies was unethical in many respects, including deliberate exposure of subjects to known serious health threats, lack of knowledge of and consent for experimental procedures by study subjects, and the use of highly vulnerable populations."[22] A total of 83 subjects died, though the exact relationship to the experiment remains undocumented.[9][22]
Medical professionals involved
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Thomas Parran
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Thomas Parran was the sixth Surgeon General of the United States, who served from 1936 to 1948. Parran's profound interest in STD research can be seen when he testified before Congress in 1938 for expanded funding for public health prevention efforts and scientific research in the STD field. [citation needed]
He had knowledge of the experiment's ethical implications. This can be seen in a 1947 letter to John Charles Cutler (the lead researcher of the Guatemala STD studies) Parran is quoted as having said "You know, we couldn’t do such an experiment in this country,” which would suggest he was aware of some of the ethical issues in the study. However, the full extent of his knowledge is unclear. An official committee at the University of Pittsburgh reported the following on Parran, who was a founder of the University's Graduate School of Public Health: “Dr. Parran’s role, and the extent of his influence in approving, funding, and providing oversight of the Tuskegee and Guatemalan studies, is not entirely clear. Based upon the evidence available today, it might not be possible to determine with certainty Dr. Parran’s level of knowledge and involvement in the studies.” Following their investigation the University of Pittsburg still removed Dr. Parren's name from all school buildings.
After serving as Surgeon General, Thomas Parran began a career working as the first dean of the new School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. He retired from his administrative role at the university and became president of the Avalon Foundation, affiliated with the Mellon family, and became active in the A. W Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust. He died in 1968, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health named Parran Hall after him in 1969. The building was renamed in 2018 due to his involvement in unethical experimentation.[23]
John F. Mahoney
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Prior to his involvement in the Guatemalan syphilis experiment, Mahoney graduated from the University of Pittsburgh medical school in 1914. By 1918 he was the Assistant Surgeon at the United States Public Health Service. In 1929, Mahoney worked as the director of the Venereal Disease Research Lab in Staten Island, where the Terre Haute experiments began in 1943, and where Cutler first assisted him.[citation needed]
After stopping the Terre Haute experiments for lack of accurate infection of subjects with gonorrhea, 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 prospects for eliminating the disease altogether in individuals.[9]
Mahoney, Cutler, Juan Funes 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