What light does the Guatemala study throw on it and similar experiments conducted in the United States?
Reverby: The Guatemala study was very different in two ways from what happened in Tuskegee. In Guatemala the men and women were given syphilis. In Tuskegee the men already were in the late latent stage (primarily) of the disease. In Guatemala, there was the intention to treat with penicillin even if not everyone got enough or was treated. In Tuskegee, there was the intention to keep the men from treatment, even if those who survived into the antibiotic era often got to treatment by happenstance or through the assistance of other doctors. The Guatemala study also shows that the PHS physicians knew about ethical guidelines and were worried that this study had crossed them. I speculate whether this made them think, perhaps, that Tuskegee was therefore not so awful. I think they both demonstrate the kind of cowboy ethics of medicine at a time in which the supposed greater good of society, as seen by the researchers, trumped any other consideration. Have you found any interesting patterns i
