Reference
- Tuskegee Syphilis StudyFrom 1932 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) sponsored and ran the nation's longest-running deceptive public-health experiment in and around Tuskegee, in Macon County, Alabama, in which hundreds of African American men were observed, but not intentionally treated, for their disease. The PHS did not give the men syphilis, as it is often rumored, but watched them over the decades and led them to believe they were being treated. The study was conducted with the cooperation of the Tuskegee Institute and the public-health departments of Macon County and the state of Alabama, but without the consent of the men who were told they were being treated. It ended only after a media exposé in 1972 prompted a national outcry. Controversy stemming from the experiment, known primarily as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, prompted major reforms in medical research protections and a formal apology to the program's unwitting participants by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
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Perspectives
Examining Tuskegee
The forty-year Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which took place in and around Tuskegee, Alabama, from the 1930s through the 1970s, has become a profound metaphor for medical racism, government malfeasance, and physician arrogance. Susan M. Reverby's Examining Tuskegee is a comprehensive analysis of the notorious study of untreated syphilis among African American men, who were told by U.S. Public Health Service doctors that they were being treated, not just watched, for their late-stage syphilis. With rigorous clarity, Reverby investigates the study and its aftermath from multiple perspectives and illuminates the reasons for its continued power and resonance in our collective memory.
Tuskegee's Truths
Between 1932 and 1972, approximately six hundred African American men in Alabama served as unwitting guinea pigs in what is now considered one of the worst examples of arrogance, racism, and duplicity in American medical research--the Tuskegee syphilis study. Told they were being treated for "bad blood," the nearly four hundred men with late-stage syphilis and two hundred disease-free men who served as controls were kept away from appropriate treatment and plied instead with placebos, nursing visits, and the promise of decent burials. Despite the publication of more than a dozen reports in respected medical and public health journals, the study continued for forty years, until extensive media coverage finally brought the experiment to wider public knowledge and forced its end. This edited volume gathers articles, contemporary newspaper accounts, selections from reports and letters, reconsiderations of the study by many of its principal actors, and works of fiction, drama, and poetry to tell the Tuskegee story as never before. Together, these pieces illuminate the ethical issues at play from a remarkable breadth of perspectives and offer an unparalleled look at how the study has been understood over time.
Bad Blood
Read about he Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
Online Resources
- The Tuskegee Timelinen 1932, the USPHS, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis. It was originally called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” (now referred to as the “USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee”). The study initially involved 600 Black men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease. Participants’ informed consent was not collected.
- Historical Origins of the Tuskegee Experiment: The Dilemma of Public Health in the United StatesThe Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was an observational study on African-American males in Tuskegee, Alabama between 1932 and 1972. The U. S. Public Health Service ran this study on more than 300 people without notifying the participants about their disease nor treating them even after the introduction of penicillin. The study included recording the progress of disease and performing an autopsy on the deaths.
- TUSKEGEE AND THE HEALTH OF BLACK MEN*For forty years, the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male passively monitored hundreds of adult black males with syphilis despite the availability of effective treatment. The study’s methods have become synonymous with exploitation and mistreatment by the medical profession.
Ugly History: The U.S. Syphilis Experiment
- Ugly History: The U.S. Syphilis Experiment - Susan M. ReverbyDig into the unethical Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which spanned 40 years and lied to its participants about receiving treatment for syphilis.
USA: PRESIDENT CLINTON APOLOGISES FOR SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT
- USA: PRESIDENT CLINTON APOLOGISES FOR SYPHILIS EXPERIMENTPresident Clinton is taking steps to right a wrong by apologising to the black men whose syphilis went untreated because of a federal experiment.
He is also seeking to regain the faith of blacks who mistrust the government to this day because of the notorious Tuskegee study, which began in the thirties.
The men's syphilis was left to run its course despite the fact that penicillin was available which could have cured the disease.
In a White House ceremony on Friday, President Bill Clinton said he was sorry the men had been betrayed by their government.