In 1945, the U.S National Institute of Health (NIH) issued the official Research Grant (RG-65) to the Pan American Health Organization reading "The Guatemala study dealing with the experimental transmission of syphilis to human volunteers and improved methods of prophylaxis". During the two-year experiment---U.S Public Health Service doctors traveled to foreign lands and intentionally infected Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers, and mental patients with syphilis and other forms of STD. These subjects are central to the discussion of the present thesis as we explore how they were created, what local institutions managed this population, and ways ideas of health and citizenship fit into the global context of science. In addition, the Guatemalan syphilis experiments beg us to revisit historical power relations throughout the Americas and avenues scientists' appropriate, shape, and (re)produce developing regions by means of racial generalizations surrounding Latin American institutions and susceptibility to disease. This region retains a strong connection to centuries of colonial dominance from imperial powers seeking to control land and labor resources. A narrative situated among global socioeconomic and political arrangements, while highlighting a discourse of biological markers to craft pawns in the pursuits of science rather than beneficiaries of public health developments.