In 2011, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (the Bioethics Commission) issued “Ethically Impossible” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. The report is the result of its ethical analysis aimed at uncovering the specifics of the U.S. Public Health Service’s studies conducted in Guatemala involving the intentional exposure of vulnerable populations to sexually transmitted diseases without their consent. The Bioethics Commission assessed the experiments conducted in the 1940s against standards of that time as well as contemporary standards and found that in both contexts the experiments involved gross ethical violations. The informed consent process, a cornerstone of ethical research, was absent from the Guatemala experiments despite the acknowledgment of it as an ethical standard at the time. There is also evidence of active deceit on the part of researchers.
For guided reading and discussion questions about informed consent in the Guatemala STD research studies, see pages 30-41 in A Study Guide to “Ethically Impossible” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948.
Download module here.
Download the Background module on informed consent here.
Listen to "Episode 8: Ethically Impossible", an episode of Ethically Sound, a podcast of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
