Data released in research tied to syphilis controversy

Data released in research tied to syphilis controversy
Friday, February 24, 2012
By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A presidential panel on Thursday released hundreds of supporting documents related to its investigation of government syphilis research in 1940s Guatemala carried out by John Cutler, a U.S. Public Health Service doctor who later became a University of Pittsburgh professor.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues posted the documents on its website, www.bioethics.gov, including a spreadsheet of the research subjects and a Spanish translation of its final report released in the fall.

The commission's site also includes new links to historical documents, such as notes and letters left behind by Cutler during the years when he deliberately infected some 700 Guatemalan mental patients, soldiers and others with syphilis and gonorrhea without their consent. Cutler died in 2003.

The links to documents are highlighted in blue in the endnotes of the commission's report, "Ethically Impossible: STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948."

More:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12055/1212271-84.stm#ixzz1nbvbkLWe