University Times

An ethics panel assigned to investigate Public Health Service (PHS) studies done in Guatemala during the 1940s has completed its work and will report to the president this month.

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues’ work was sparked by details found in Pitt’s archives among the papers of former Pitt public health professor John Cutler, who as a young PHS doctor conducted the study, 1946-48.

While conducting research in Pitt’s archive for a book on the Tuskegee syphilis study, Wellesley College faculty member Susan Reverby uncovered Cutler’s documentation of how PHS doctors infected Guatemalan prisoners, mental hospital patients and soldiers with syphilis without their permission in order to study treatment of the disease.

Cutler, who died in 2003, left PHS to join the Pitt faculty in 1967 and later donated his papers to the University. They since have been moved to the National Archives in Atlanta.

When Reverby’s discovery of the unethical research practices was published, the ensuing outcry led to lawsuits on behalf of the subjects and an apology by President Barack Obama to the Guatemalan government.

Reverby recounted her research and the subsequent reaction in a symposium on campus earlier this year. (See March 31 University Times.)

Following his apology last October, Obama gave the bioethics commission a two-fold mission: to oversee a fact-finding investigation into details of the research in Guatemala and to assure him that current rules protect research subjects from harm or unethical treatment.

Commission chair Amy Gutmann, in an Aug. 29 statement, said that with the historical investigation completed, the commission would turn its attention toward reviewing current standards for protecting research subjects and present its final report by the end of the year.

“It is important that we accurately document this clearly unethical historical injustice. We do this to honor the victims,” Gutmann stated. “In addition, we must look to and learn from the past so that we can assure the public that scientific and medical research today is conducted in an ethical manner. Research with human subjects is a sacred trust. Without public confidence, participation will decline and critical research will be stopped. It is imperative that we get this right.”

—Kimberly K. Barlow