The Tuskegee Experiment
In 1932, in the area surrounding the Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, the U.S. Public Health Service created a government funded study to be conducted on 600 African American men that were lured in with the promise of free health care. What this study consisted of was testing these men for the sexually transmitted disease syphilis. After the testing was completed 399 infected and 201 healthy men were not told anything except that they had a condition called “bad blood” and that they must continue to come and receive treatment. In the early 1930s there was no definite cure for the disease so the study was supposed to treat the men with remedies until a cure could be found; instead funding ran out and treatment could no longer be provided . Even though there was no money coming in to pay for treatment for the men, the study was continued so that instead the effects of this deadly disease when it remains untreated could be studied. “The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one of the most horrendous examples of research carried out in disregard of basic ethical principles of conduct. The publicity surrounding the study was one of the major influences leading to the codification of protection for human subjects.” (Jones, 1981) What these men went through over the 40 years of study can be labeled as one of the grossest injustices known to mankind. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by bacteria called Treponema pallidum; which is passed from person to person through unprotected sexual contact with any part of the body, the signs and symptoms of syphilis are very similar to that of other diseases or often times unnoticeable which causes it to be incorrectly diagnosed or go untreated for year. When symptoms are found in the primary stages they are in the form of a single sore, also called a chancre, which is easily treated by the medicine penicillin, as the stages progress a rough skin rash red in color will start to appear. Other symptoms include fever, sore
Cited: Gray, Fred D. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: the Real Story and beyond. Montgomery, AL: Black Belt, 1998 Jones, J. (1981). Bad Blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment: A tragedy of race and medicine. NY: The Free Press "Miss Evers ' Boys (TV 1997) - IMDb." The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 22 Nov. 2010 President Apologizes at White House for error in Tuskegee case. (five survivors attend as Pres. Bill Clinton Speaks: infamous US government syphilis experiment (Jet 1997)