The Tuskegee Experiment
NO. 1
The Tuskegee Experiment was a hoax experiment used to study how black Americans differ from white Americans in catching a disease. It was a study truly held on the biases and stereotypes of other races. No scientific experiment inflicted more damage on the collective psyche of black Americans than the Tuskegee experiment. ‘‘In 1932, following a survey of the incidence of syphilis in a number of Southern regions, the venereal disease division of the U.S Public Health Service (USPHS) began what turned out to be a forty-year project in Macon County, Alabama, to follow the effects of untreated syphilis in some 400 black men. The study continued through World War II, when a number of the men who were called up for the draft and, had they not been research subjects, would have received medical attention for their infection. It continued through the 1950s, after the efficacy of penicillin treatment was established, and after the Nuremberg trials produced a code of ethics for biomedical research. It lasted through the 1960s, untouched by the civil rights agitation, and unaffected by the code of research adopted by the USPHS itself. It ended only in 1972 when an account of the experiment in the Washington Post sparked a furor.’’
NO. 2
One question that boggles the mind is how could an experiment of such degree that violated both moral and medical ethics continue on for so long? Unfortunately, no questions were asked about the rights and welfare of the men who became study/research subjects, and those same men didn’t even understand that they were unwillingly participating in a research project. Each man was given many treatments, placebo’s mostly, including a ‘spinal tap’, where the needle went directly into the spine without anesthesia, just to see what would happen. ‘‘At least three generations of doctors serving in the venereal disease division of the USPHS, numerous officials at the Tuskegee Institute and its affiliated hospital, hundreds of doctors in the Macon County and Alabama medical societies, and numerous foundation officials at the Rosenwald Fund and Milbank Memorial Fund. It also includes the many readers of such medical journals like the Public Health Reports, the Archives of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of Chronic Diseases. These readers could not have escaped the conclusion that untreated blacks had been severely damaged. In July 1954, an article in the Public Health Reports, to choose one example from many, concluded that ‘the life expectancy of a Negro Male between the ages of 25 to 50 years, infected with syphilis and receiving no appreciable treatment for his infection, is reduced by about 17%.’’
NO. 3
As the 400 men were being ‘treated’, government officials were ecstatic to see that syphilis was the same in blacks as it was in whites, by looking at the many and various autopsies of the men who did not survive, due to organ failure and damage. Racism was at the forefront of this tragedy, as scientists saw black men as expendable and looked forward to seeing the disease progress. Men who were affected tried to seek out treatment elsewhere, in other counties but were called back by the very doctors and nurses they trusted, since they were apart of the study. Once the news story broke out, many in the black community lost faith in the government and no longer believed health officials who spoke on matters of public concern. For example, when the AIDS crisis began in the ’80s and ’90s, ‘‘the Tuskegee experiment predisposed many blacks to distrust health authorities, a fact many whites had difficulty understanding. The NYTimes on May 6, 1992, many black Americans believes that AIDS and the health measures used against it are part of the conspiracy to wipe out the black race. To support their assertion, their editor cited a survey of black church members in 1990 that revealed ‘an astonishing 35% believed AIDS was a form of genocide.’
