• Ethics
• Syphilis
• Gonorrhoea

In October 2010, the public became aware of a massive clinical research enterprise on sexually transmitted infections, conducted in Guatemala during 1946–1948.1 As the story unfolded it became very clear that the conduct of the studies was clouded by egregious ethical violations. The revelations prompted an official apology by the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to the Government of Guatemala, and a subsequent investigation by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, resulting in a final report that was issued in September 2011.2

The archival materials for the Guatemala studies were discovered inadvertently by Dr Susan Reverby, a historian at Wellesley College, whose work has focused on the infamous Tuskegee studies of untreated syphilis, which occurred from the late 1930s through 1972. Reverby's work focused primarily on experiential history, from the view point of the research subjects, of the health professionals who participated in the studies, and then how the story of the study travelled through the American cultural landscape.3–5 The principal figure in the Guatemala studies, Dr John Cutler, was also a physician in the Tuskegee study group at the United States Public Health Service (USPHS), and who was also an author on a number of the Tuskegee publications.6 ,7