The Tuskegee Experiment

Tue 18 May 2010 by abagond

A doctor pretending to treat one of the subjects of the Tuskegee Experiment

The Tuskegee Experiment (1932-1972) was a 40-year American government study of the effects of untreated syphilis on black men. “Untreated” is the key word: when a cure for the disease was found in the 1940s, none of the men were allowed to receive it, not even to save their lives or stop them from going mad.

It sounds like some cruel Nazi experiment. And yet it went on even after laws were passed in the late 1940s to prevent cruel Nazi experiments!

Of the 399 men in the study 128 died directly or indirectly from the disease. They spread it to 40 of their wives who in turn gave it to 19 of their children.

At least as early as 1966 some within the government began to question the study on moral grounds. But the CDC (Center for Disease Control) defended it and the study went on. It did not stop until 1972 when it made the front page of the New York Times.

Even then the doctor who led the study still defended it saying:

The men’s status did not warrant ethical debate. They were subjects, not patients; clinical material, not sick people.

The NAACP took the government to court for the families affected and won $9 million and free medical care.

Because of stuff like this at least a third of blacks in America believe that the government is somehow behind Aids.

The men in the study were tricked and lied to from the very beginning. They never told them they had syphilis, just “bad blood”. They got them to agree to spinal taps by calling it a “special free treatment”. Taking advantage of their poverty, they promised them free medical treatment and free hot meals.

But the truth is during the main part of the study there never was any true treatment because that was the whole point: to see how untreated syphilis affects black men.

It was modelled on a 1928 study done on white men in Oslo, Norway. But in that study no one was prevented from getting treatment: they merely found men who had not received treatment for whatever reason and asked questions about the course of the disease.

To us a separate study for black men seems pointless but to whites at the time it did not: they were racist enough to believe that syphilis affects black men differently somehow.

In 1992 Dr David Feldshuh wrote a play about the study, “Miss Evers’ Boys”, which HBO made into a film in 1997 starring Alfre Woodard and Laurence Fishburne.

That same year the president said:

What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry … To our African American citizens, I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist.

See also:

Jim Crow
The Milgram Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment

Posted in stuff | 66 Comments

66 Responses

on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:08:00 Y

Sick, sick, sick. We discussed this in my HIV/AIDS course last semester. The prof tied it to AIDS, something like 33% of black Americans believe AIDS was manufactured by the US government and purposefully introduced to the black population. A lot people will read that and thinks black are dumb or too paranoid, but can you blame them? Whne your own government injects you with an ultimately fatal disease and allows you to unknowing spread it to your loved ones, what make you think they wont do it again?

Man America is something else.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:21:12 Pockysmama

Doncha know? Blacks are paranoid about everything and its always without reason. But hang out here for a little while, I’m sure someone will come along soon to whitesplain to you why there is no reason for blacks to be paranoid. You know, living in post-racial America and all.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:29:07 Jade

What’s more insulting is not a single “researcher” was ever prosecuted. Heck, I would at least strip everyone of their licenses.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:37:25 Color O' the Day

@ Y

You said it girl. Who knows what kind of other sick twisted things are going on today? Here is a link with nice list that breaks down some of the known experiements on standard segments of the population, inlcuding the Tuskegee experiement.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread59987/pg1

Excerpt:
1970 United States intensifies its development of “ethnic weapons” (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.

Gee, I wonder where Blacks would ever get that crazy idea that the governement created AIDS to kill Black people? I mean, the Tuskegee Experiment is just a fabrication, right?

Now I ask, what kind of crap is going on today? Personally, I think I was part of an experiement in the Persian gulf. Ever hear of Persian Gulf syndrome?
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:49:09 B.R.

I am ashamed, as an American, just plain ashamed of this.

As an American, I have to take responsibility , and it is shameful. It just leaves a hole in the gut.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:50:22 B.R.

Who was the president who said that? Clinton or Bush?
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 18:53:10 Color O' the Day

@ B.R.

I started to talkd about American Pride/Brazilian pride, but that is another thread, so lets take that to the ‘suggestions’ section.

The saddest part is, this kind of thing still goes on!!!
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 19:41:52 http

Here is the medical arm of oppression coming through, yesterday it was the police arm. They are all the same.

F the government.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 20:48:37 alwaysright101

oddly enough my lack of trust in doctors is less on race and more on the fact that doctors love to overcharge you for something and they also seem to care more about their money and the prestige then making sure they did a bang up job.

but i do hope there are hawkeyes, BJs (M*A*S*H my favorite show ever!!), and Dr. Carters (er, well the last time i watched that show was season 8 in 2001 so i don’t know if he changed) in the world. i seriously hope so.

as for what the president said, i hate how he used “we can finally say” that is just ignorant considering this country has done much worse that has gone unapologized…but personally i’d rather have no apology than an apology that makes white people that because they said it they can forget about the after-effects and go back into pretending racism is “gone”.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 20:51:29 alwaysright101

*think because
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 20:59:27 B.R.

alwaysright101, funny, I have developed a distrust for doctors as I go on in life.

I start to get the impresion they really dont know my body. Many times I have gone to doctors to deal with back pain or something, and, they just cant really help it.But, they sure take the money.

I know down to the nitty gritty , you have to go eventualy, unless you die a sudden death, but, I really feel they dont know what is going on with my body, , and reccomend medicines that dont always work and cost a lot ,so, I avoid going , if I dont have to…

There are some exceptions…
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:08:01 alwaysright101

@b.r.
they do that stuff with my mom. one time they nearly killed her by giving her too much of one medicine…but they called us in time to let my mom know she needed to go to the hospital. i guess its cause she is poor and sick so they feel they shouldn’t have to give her the best.

as for me, i have no insurance and am not stepping foot into a hospital until i have to. they would probably charge more for something minor than what my tuition at school is worth.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:15:11 Patricia Kayden

Very sad story — can never bring myself to watch “Miss Evers’ Boys”.

Unfortunately, the Tuskegee experiment was one of many times Blacks were used for medical practice.

http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/58/10/1380?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%22medical+apartheid%22&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:20:50 alwaysright101

so i am guessing a rule of thumb should be is to never partake in medical experiments either in general or if many of the “patients” or should i say guinea pigs are black?

i have partaken in psychological experiments which i must admit are kinda fun…cause i wanna know whats going on with my brain waves and all that…i actually want to one day do one of those experiments where they monitor your sleep.

but i don’t think i could ever do a medical one, knowing their history with blacks…that is unless they give me a good price for doing it…like in the 100,000s or something.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:21:49 alwaysright101

but what scares me are the experiments where you are an unwilling participant whether by force or if they decided to just experiment on you with out you knowing.

now that is scary. i wouldn’t be surprised if its happening right now.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:22:20 Y

alwaysright101:

You should look into insurance that is proved through the school specifically for students. Chances are you wont get sick because you are young(I havent bend to the doctor for a check up in 3 years) but you never know. Its always nice to have that security.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:28:25 J

And if we broaden it out, there has been a number of unknown experiments on the American population too.

Shame I cannot remember them specifically. However, I have a better memory for the ones which were carried out here (UK) only slightly though

http://thewarnings.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/uk-government-has-admitted-to-spraying-british-public-with-deadly-toxins/
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:29:42 alwaysright101

thats just it though, my school hikes up the prices on everything so that no one can realistically afford anything.

i just kinda hope if i get hurt i will die so i don’t have to pay that bill.
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 21:31:35 J

With regard to:

Unfortunately, the Tuskegee experiment was one of many times Blacks were used for medical practice.

http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/58/10/1380?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%22medical+apartheid%22&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 23:20:42 Peanut

excellent post abagond, one of the best ones…yes, yes the tuskeegee experiment scared the hell out of me and yes I am afraid to get certain shots/tests as a result of this…

“Because of stuff like this at least a third of blacks in America believe that the government is somehow behind Aids.”

yes…the fear is there…i’ve heard people make such statments myself
on Thu 20 May 2010 at 23:34:13 Mira

One question: did they infect them with syphilis, or simply didn’t cure them?

Don’t get me wrong, there’s really no that much of a difference, but it’s unclear in the article.

I never heard of this experiment before, but I did hear theories about AIDS being created by scientists. In the version that is popular in my country, scientists created the virus to kill people in Africa.

Now. I don’t believe the virus was created in the lab with the purpose of killing people. I try not to believe in conspiracy theories (they are very popular in my culture). But with things like the Tuskegee experiment, you can’t really blame people for being careful and not trusting.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 00:01:00 abagond

Mira:

From what I have heard they infected the men, but from what I have read and from what I saw in “Miss Evers’ Boys” they found men who already had it – which in 1932 would not have been hard. But either way they let these men die when they could have easily saved their lives.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 00:07:11 Mira

Thanks for the info. I guess we’ll never know for sure; but like you said, it’s horrible either way. And they didn’t just let those people die- they did the same to women and children.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 01:00:30 Reginald

Once again, we all bare witness to how barbaric and mentally twisted man can treat his fellow man. Someone mentioned Karma a few comments back. A universal law that is always in affect in this world. We seem to be a species hell bent on constantly creating the worst karmas that we can possibly create for ourselves.

While studying ancient civilizations in college, a physics professor pointed out a interesting conclusion which he thought deserved some research.

He said, many ancient civilizations intelligently advanced until they reached a certain peek, at which time all of them systematically began to plummet downward, and finally internally self destructing completely destroying their civililizations.

This seems to be what we do best. Yes, we do seem to have our day in the sun. Only to be replaced by a self afflicting wound that no society can ever survive.

How could a species so capable of creating such incredible achievements be so self damming. This is a sickness which never seems to get healed in us all.

While watching the Mexican Gulf platform oil leak this evening, it looks like our civilization is diving straight to the bottom once again. Damn, we sure are good at this, are’nt we.

Looks like “Planet of the Apes” was nothing more than a quantum history lesson into the future.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 02:13:01 macon d

Thank you Abagond for this clear and stark reminder of a particularly grotesque chapter in the history of white abuse of black people. We should never forget it, nor the many other examples, nor the ongoing examples (experiments on prisoners, especially), but sadly, most white Americans don’t even know it in the first place. This episode should also be front and center in school textbooks, but sadly, given the crap the Texas School Board is up to, that seems less likely than ever.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 02:38:49 macon d

Thanks also to J above for that “Democracy Now!” segment with Harriet Washington (author of “Medical Apartheid”). I watched the whole thing, and Washington gets into more recent examples in the second segment, including dissection of black people’s corpses, and experiments on live prisoner’s bodies (injections of various diseases, and experimentation on their skin for cosmetics companies), and black women being forced to go on Norplant for abusing their children, and black adolescents who have behavior problems being given experimental drugs, and more. Ugh, incredible, the inhumanity! Finally, Washington also says that “all indications are that the government is going to take [a] recommendation to reopen prisons” to medical experimentation.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 04:31:48 Y

alwaysright101:

LOL hopefully you will never be put in that situation! Im guessing you are around my age 18-22(Im 20), if so nothing to worry about. Just take vitamins, eat healthy and dont get into any freak accidents..
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 05:04:22 J

I refer to my previous comments

“And if we broaden it out, there has been a number of unknown experiments on the American population too.

Shame I cannot remember them specifically”.

Well I might be able to now:

The History of Bioterrorism in America By Richard Sanders,
(Coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade)

http://www.raceandhistory.com/selfnews/viewnews.cgi?newsid1038118811,57464,.shtml
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 05:11:37 alwaysright101

i’m 20 also…going to be going on 21 in july. i guess it helps that i don’t drink or smoke…but what sucks is that no matter how responsible one person is an irresponsible person can still ruin the responsible person’s life.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 05:30:44 SW6

First off let me just say …

AARGHHHHH!!!! FU@#K!!!
(ahem)

1.) The photograph just makes me want to weep. (I don’t weep easily.)

2.) The Tuskegee Experiment (TKE), rather the reaction to it amongst black Americans makes me ill. What do i mean? I don’t know what percentage of black Americans actually support the “we should receive reparations” meme. But it’s exactly things like TKE that make wanting reparations so vulgar and reduce blacks to the level of prostitute. (I know that is strong, it’s how i feel. I’m black if any one is wondering.)

The fact that we know something like TKE happened and that we suspect or know about other covert experiments (race based and others) makes asking for reparations the height of house negro prostitution. The criminalization of the american black male, and things like TKE are plain and simple brutal State violence.

A sane black leadership would never have begun this disgusting idea about receiving reparations. Instead, call out every monster who was involved with the abomination called The Tuskegee Experiment and make sure their names are right beside the most wretched scum of history. If there is anyone to prosecute, DO IT! I DON’T CARE IF THEY ARE OCTOGENARIANS PLUS. Also, “out” congress and any other culpable institution for funding such sickness. Things like TKE happen within very purposeful institutional frameworks.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 08:21:22 Femi

The cruelty and cynicism in such kind of ‘research’ is hard to top. Pseudo-science at its ugliest. This was definitely a nazi style study. It only serves the twisted political agenda of those who seem to be desperate for proof that ‘race’ in humans has a biological foundation.

Apart from the cruelty, the MDs involved in this experiment violated their hippocratic oath.

Governments need to pass concise laws -
* No public funding whatsoever of any project that seeks to prove the populistic concept of ‘race’ in humans and/or to justify unequal treatment according to arbitrary and coarse classification.
* Strip evidenced junk scientists of all their academic titles.
* Any private research as mentioned above cannot be called ‘scientific’.
* Apply draconian fines for noncompliance.
(Money is usually the only language those people understand…)
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 12:33:45 JGreyden

It isn’t because racist sciences were unvalidated at one point in time, that the scientists trained under its era, ceased to exist.

Here, a link from racialicious about the Lackses legacy to modern science.

http://www.racialicious.com/2010/04/13/the-immortal-life-of-henrietta-lacks/
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 17:40:41 davi

The tales of whitey’s evil run strong. Or is the devil so black (no pun intended).

Tuskegee re-examined
A cultural anthropologist offers a counter-narrative to the infamous story of US government scientists allowing black men to suffer from untreated syphilis.
by Richard A Shweder

It is said of Thucydides, the great ancient Greek historian, that his recording of human events during the Peloponnesian War is ‘marked by accuracy and a studied impartiality’.

Some of the intellectual virtues we associate with a Thucydides, or with a Socrates (a principled commitment to explore the other side) are at risk of being sacrificed in our contemporary public policy forums. All too often these days one witnesses the triumph of identity politics over critical reason. All too often a rhetoric of evil and moral horror demanding protective public interventions has produced a rush to judgement about matters of great consequence.

One such case, in which sensational and consequential declarations have been made without the benefit of robust impartial debate, relates to ‘The ‘Tuskegee Study of untreated syphilis in the Negro male’. The ‘Tuskegee Study’ was conducted in Macon County, Alabama between 1932 and 1972, and is often associated with the image of monstrous government researchers allowing black patients to suffer from a curable and devastating infection (syphilis), so as to document the natural course of the disease.

The study, which was conducted openly and without secrecy, is now commonly and routinely portrayed in one or more of the following ways: as racist science; as ‘a programme of controlled genocide’ (whites against blacks); as a violation of basic human rights; as a study by the US government’s Public Health Service in which effective treatment for a fatal disease was withheld from a poor, uneducated, vulnerable minority group in disregard of their health and safety; as a callous scientific pursuit that ignored human values and was ‘almost beyond belief and human compassion’; as ‘an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens’; as a research project in which the government gave syphilis to black people so as to scientifically document the natural course of the illness; as an ‘experiment’ in which human beings were treated like guinea pigs or laboratory rats.

The study is also often cited as a compelling example of why we need the Institutional Review Board (IRB) system of ethical surveillance and control for research with human subjects – a system that is now applied by most US universities to all research with human beings, regardless of funding source (public, private or personal) and research topic (medical or non-medical). Indeed, it was a New York Times article by Jean Heller on 26 July 1972, provocatively titled ‘Syphilis Victims in U.S. Study Went Untreated for 40 Years’, and subsequent Congressional hearings held in the post-1968 civil rights era (precipitated in part by media representations of the Tuskegee study), that resulted in the legislation that first mandated IRB review for all government-funded research.

My own interest in learning more about the Tuskegee syphilis study began with a dinner conversation with a friend, who is a doctor. Earlier that day I had received a communication from the head of an IRB committee indicating that ‘Tuskegee’ was reason enough to have all research questions and procedures at the University of Chicago screened and approved by an IRB. Although I knew relatively little about the details of the Tuskegee Study, I had somehow acquired the impression that many decades ago during the days of unregulated medical science the US Public Health Service had actually infected black men with syphilis. This is a not uncommon belief among black and white Americans who have heard of ‘Tuskegee’.

But my friend told me: ‘Nobody was given syphilis in the study.’ All the participants (black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama in 1932) already had syphilis, ‘but they were not treated for the disease’. I then asked him how syphilis was treated in 1932 when the study started. ‘There were some horrible, painful, expensive long-term treatments around but I don’t think they really worked’, he said – ‘there was no effective therapy at the time’. ‘Had there been an IRB system in place in 1932, applying the medical research norms of those times, would the IRB have approved the project?’, I asked. ‘I am not sure, but they might have’, he said. I began to suspect that there was both less and more to ‘Tuskegee’ and the political role it now plays in popular consciousness than has met the public eye.

So I began to read the now standard literature on the topic, as well as some of the scientific reports by members of the Tuskegee project, a sociological study of Macon County conducted in the early 1930s, and websites of various kinds (1). Eventually I discovered a Thucydides-like historical account of the medical belief system that informed the research (2). And the more I read, the more suspicious I became about the standard horror-story.

Accusations of racism, egregious harm and betrayal (lack of informed consent) are common features of the horror-story account. A sober representation in this genre might state that the Tuskegee syphilis study was ‘a US Public Health Service experiment that allowed 400 black males of Tuskegee to go unknowingly without syphilis medication for 40 years simply to satisfy the medical profession’s curiosity about what happens to people when they aren’t cured of venereal disease’ (3).

The implication of that statement, of course, is that the syphilis infections of the residents of Macon County in 1932 could have been cured, yet vulnerable black men were kept ignorant of their condition and left to suffer because of the racist attitudes at the Public Health Service – and that all this was done in the name of callous science by researchers who had no real interest in the public good or the welfare of members of a poor minority group in the South.

The first research publication that I found from the study itself states: ‘The original study population selected during the winter months of 1931-32 and 1932-33 consisted of 410 syphilitics, all of whom were 25 years of age or older. The presence or absence of syphilitic infection was based on history, physical examination, and qualitative serologic tests on the blood. Of the syphilitic groups, 178 were given some treatment for their infection during the period of this first examination. Most of these individuals were among the younger age groups, and were given amounts of treatment varying from 1 to 15 injections of neoarsphenamine [the most common arsenical drug of the times]. Patients who were given treatment were dropped from consideration in the present paper. A second complete physical examination was performed in 1938-39 when 140 untreated syphilitics and 156 controls were examined.’ (4)

So the plot thickened. Not everyone went without attempted therapy. The Tuskegee study was meant to be a study of men with later stage latent syphilis, who had been infected for at least five years and were not contagious. One Tuskegee research report states: ‘The patients [in the study] who had syphilis were all in the latent stage: any acute cases requiring treatment were carefully screened out for standard therapy.’ (5) It would appear that those who were in the early stages of infection were treated. It is only in the early stages of infection that sores appear; those sores disappear with the passage of time. It is also only during the early stages that the disease is contagious, which is also when the therapies of the 1930s were ideally administered and thought to have their greatest effect.

I also learned that the therapies of that era were in fact so weak, hazardous, lengthy, costly and difficult to administer that very few people with syphilis were willing to tolerate the drugs for the full course of the treatment. Most patients (perhaps 85 per cent) simply voted with their feet and gave up on the ‘therapy’. Of those who did suffer through the full treatment (it could take more than a year and required carefully monitored intravenous administration of the drug) relatively few patients were ever cured of the syphilis infection or protected against its potentially damaging effects because of those therapies.

Indeed, one of the most astonishing facts about the disease (at least to those of us who are not medical scientists, or who naively associate syphilis with the demise and devastation of Frederick Nietzsche) is that, after the early stages of infection, the vast majority of people who have untreated syphilis either remain asymptomatic all of their lives or else spontaneously recover from the disease. For most people, a syphilis infection is either a self-limiting or self-correcting disease, and in the 1930s the degree to which doing something (a year of protoplasmic arsenic poisoning) was better than doing nothing at all was at the very least uncertain, and was thus a matter of urgent medical and scientific concern (2).

I also learned that the study emerged out of a liberal progressive public health movement concerned about the health and wellbeing of the African-American population. The study was done with the full knowledge, endorsement and participation of African-American medical professionals, hospitals and research institutes. I learned that in Macon County in the early 1930s there was somewhere between about a 20 and 36 per cent infection rate for syphilis. I learned that the general mortality rate for the local white population of Macon County at that time was the same as the mortality rate for blacks (6). I learned that Eunice Rivers, an African-American nurse, whose voice seems informed, authoritative, and compassionate, was the key personnel for the project for nearly 40 years, and remained unwavering in her support for the study, even after it was labeled racist science and a program of controlled genocide. All this made me wonder whether perhaps the true meaning of ‘Tuskegee’ is more morally complex than I had supposed. While the physical context of the study was a segregated and racist South, this did not mean that the study itself was racist.

But most importantly I learned that there is a plausible counter-narrative about the Tuskegee study that has received rather little press coverage, has not entered public consciousness (although it can be found in some academic writings) (7) and, perhaps because it does not fit with the discourse of horror, has not figured in the official literature seeking to justify the post-Tuskegee evolution of the IRB system of research regulation. Whether this counter-narrative can survive open debate and responsible, impartial cross-examination remains to be seen, but it is a story that is plausible enough to deserve a more public hearing (8).

As I interpret it, there are three main themes in the counter-narrative. The first is that circa 1932 a reasonable, fully informed public health researcher who cared about the welfare of all human beings – black and white – might well have supported the Tuskegee syphilis study. The possible reasons for such support have been outlined by Benedek and Erlan (2): ’1. syphilis was recognized to be a major public health problem; 2. it was most prevalent in the black population; 3. there was disagreement about its optimal treatment; 4. all treatment programs, were lengthy, painful and potentially toxic, with a very poor completion rate; 5. a large proportion of the syphilitic population obtained no relevant treatment; 6. according to one retrospective study [an earlier analysis of medical records on an untreated white Scandinavian population], the disease resolved spontaneously in a majority of cases.’ (p18-19)

The first theme of the counter-narrative suggests that a reasonable person in those circumstances might conclude that participation in the study did not involve a substantial increase in risk to the health of the men involved, and might produce some useful knowledge.

Here is how Benedek and Erlen (2) describe the medical belief and knowledge system of that pre-penicillin era. They suggest that in 1930 there was an urgent sense of the need for more rapidly acting and safer drugs for treating syphilis. They quote the surgeon-general (in 1938) who reports: ‘[S]yphilology of 1925 was a chaos of different regimes of treatment, of different dosages, of private preferences for different variations of the arsenical compounds. There were many piecemeal case studies but no accurate data upon which the scientist could judge the relative efficacy of these methods.’ (p7) They point out that between 1932 and 1946 the conclusion was reached by several investigators that ‘treatment improves the eventual course of syphilis in only a minority of cases’ (p13). They write: ‘However, all of the anti-syphilitic drugs of the 1930s were rather weak, and no dramatically more potent drugs were anticipated. Therefore, particularly detailed knowledge of the range of variability of the therapeutically unaltered course of the disease would be desirable to determine as early as possible whether a new treatment significantly altered its course.’ (p22-23).

Benedek and Erlen present evidence showing the weakness of the 1930s drugs (people receiving little or no treatment did almost as well as those going through a long, expensive, painful and risky treatment). They point out that a major medical and scientific issue at the time was the need for a baseline against which to evaluate the effectiveness of any therapy (all of which were known to be hazardous and therapeutically weak). They suggest that at that time ‘knowledge of the chronic course of syphilis was inadequate to reliably distinguish therapeutic effect after the initial phases of the disease from the variability of its chronic course’ (p2). In other words, the disease was self-limiting or self-correcting in most cases – yet no one knew for which smaller sub-population of patients that was not true or how they could be identified. In addition, it was hard to tell whether arsenical poisoning or any other therapy administered during the early stages of infection, really had a sufficiently beneficial long-term effect.

Thus, the point of the first theme in the counter-narrative is that the Tuskegee Study had a credible medical rationale; it is possible to understand the study simply as a potentially beneficial public health project. In other words, in 1932 one could be a liberal and a progressive and still consistently support the Tuskegee Study; involvement in the project was not necessarily an index of bigotry or racism.

The second theme of the counter-narrative, is that we should not presume that the life-course morbidity and mortality profiles of the Tuskegee men were significantly influenced for the worse by participation in the study. Between 1932 and the time penicillin was standardised, readily available and medically approved as a cure for syphilitic infections (which was well into the 1950s), the treatments of the day were weak and ineffective.

By the time penicillin was available the men in the study had been infected for at least 20 years, and in most cases for much longer. A minority had died, some from complications (cardiovascular diseases) caused by syphilis, but this had occurred before an effective therapy was available. For a large number of the rest, by the 1950s their original infection would have been self-limiting or self-correcting. Of those many men who were still alive in the 1950s and 1960s it remains unclear whether penicillin treatment for late latent syphilis would have had any effect on their life expectancy or health profiles. If the syphilis infection was going to damage their heart value or some other biological system, it would in all likelihood have done so long before the 1950s, and penicillin could not reverse that damage. Some forms of inflammation, if still caused by the infection, would presumably have been curable, but there is evidence that as the remarkable men from Tuskegee got older their life expectancy compared quite favourably with men from Macon County who were never infected.

So the second theme of the counter-narrative suggests that the sense of horror and moral opprobrium now associated with the Tuskegee Study is based in some measure on a misunderstanding of basic facts about syphilis (the disease is more frequently self-correcting or self-limiting and asymptomatic than most people imagine) – as well as misunderstanding about the nature and potential efficacy of the various ‘cures’ or treatments available during the 40 years of the study.

A direct test of the egregious harm accusation against the PHS and the Tuskegee Study seems possible. If the counter-narrative is correct, and little harm came as a result of participation in the study, then the men who did participate in the study should be no shorter lived or less healthy than comparable men from Macon County who were infected with syphilis in 1932 but did not participate in the study. If the drug treatments of the 1930s were more or less therapeutically useless and penicillin arrived too late really to be helpful for this particular group of long infected men, then men from Macon County who were infected with syphilis in 1932 and received treatments of arsphenamines in the 1930s and/or penicillin in the 1950s should be no longer lived and no healthier than the men who participated in the study. One hopes that the data to perform such a test are still available and that such a test might be made.

The third theme in the counter-narrative is a caution against hindsight moralising and the temptations of ‘presentism’ (the inclination to react to past actions as though they were occurring in the present and to judge them on the basis of the standards of our day). Contemporary critics of the Tuskegee Study and advocates for racial justice accuse the PHS researchers of having ‘withheld treatment’ from the Tuskegee men. If one takes to heart the caution against ‘presentism’ then one might reasonably judge that accusation to be both misleading and unfair. Putting aside the issue of whether the ‘cures’ of that era were really effective, the accusation of having ‘withheld treatment’ presupposes that the administration of an adequate early 1930s arsenical therapy regime was actually a live option.

The rest of the essay is here: http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA34A.htm
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 17:53:38 davi

Governments need to pass concise laws -
* No public funding whatsoever of any project that seeks to prove the populistic concept of ‘race’ in humans and/or to justify unequal treatment according to arbitrary and coarse classification.
* Strip evidenced junk scientists of all their academic titles.
* Any private research as mentioned above cannot be called ‘scientific’.
* Apply draconian fines for noncompliance.

Lysenko would be proud.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 18:08:38 Wrissa

Not only did white people do this, but I heard either from my mom or on this documentary on the TE, black doctors were in on it too. Which has now resulted in modern blacks (men more likely) being distrustful of black doctors as well.

Reginald,

It’s a sad but interesting fact that that’s what happens to all great societies. I think it can be explaned with “Pride goeth before the fall”. Humans in general think just because they get 2+2=4 and can come up with scientific explanations for things like quantum physics, they now know everything (when they really don’t know everything). There’s a lot of corruption that comes from knowledge as it leads to pride, greed, then poor judgement, and every other bad quality which leads to our down fall.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 18:23:33 Image

..What happen at Tuskegee will always be remembered and unfortunately for that university (Tuskegee), that happening still haunts them and probably always will.

I agree with what you’re saying Femi, but is not likely to ever happen; the public has been “lab rats” for many years and counting. I think people trust the government a little too much because they believe that the government always has their “the people’s” best interest in mind when in fact it’s usually their own interest they are more concerned about. The outer surface is made to look one way but if you are interested enough and able to get farther down, you see quite different picture.

JGreyden, thank you for the link. I’d never heard about this before, but it is very interesting from what I have read so far and I will look more into it.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 18:32:42 Image

Wrissa,

Black men are more distrustful of doctors (esp. the older generation), all together be them Black, white, Asian, what have you…….and I don’t blame them, but this comes a lot of times, at the expense of their health, which is kind of sad and twisted considering the trust those men at Tuskegee institute put in the called “doctors” who infected them.

I also find this sad and twisted because the black community seems to be plagued now with STDs, this is not to say that there aren’t numerous white people with STDs because there are plenty–except people don’t talk about that.
on Fri 21 May 2010 at 22:17:06 J

This is one of the few books I have seen on the topic. I am not sure if it says the ‘patients’ were deliberately given syphilis or not.

However, if I have to hazard a guess what others have said who have read it. Then it is the former (ie some were given syphilis)

Bad Blood -The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment by James H. Jones
on Sat 22 May 2010 at 03:23:35 Reginald

Reginald @ Wrissa

Yes it is unfortunate is’nt it. According to Mayan prophesy, we are leaving a time period of Pices and going into the Age of Aquarius. This happens when our sun aligns itsef perfectly with the center of the milky way. This historical event occurs every 26,000 years. According to their other Mayan records, Civilization has started over 5 or 6 times before. You know, I just thought of something really weird. Maybe we are in some kind of dimensional time lock and all of us are influenced by the things that we thought we got away with during our last lifetime and keep returning to this earth and this time until we pay into our karmas what we owe it. You know, a kind of reap what you have sewn thing. Nah, that could never happen, Huh!
on Sat 22 May 2010 at 03:33:24 Reginald

Reginald @ Wrissa

I stand corrected on that last entry. I believe the Prophesy that I spoke of actually came from The Hopi Indians historical hyroglyphics and related stone wall writings. Also their records relay that our world was destroyed 4 or 5 times not 5 or 6. Sorry about that.
on Sun 30 May 2010 at 20:22:28 Arianna

This is probably why black men are so reluctant to go to the doctor today. And yes I do believe “they” created the HIV virus and introduced it to the population. Couldn’t trust the devils in 1492 what makes you think you can trust them now?

*And no I do not mean all Caucasian citizens, just the people in power*
on Mon 7 Jun 2010 at 18:07:38 Shan

I don’t blame black men for not going to the doctor. As a matter of fact, black men should seek out black doctors and go to them, and we should have more black college students going into the medical field. That’s right, Arianna. They cannot be trusted because once a devil, always a devil!
on Tue 3 May 2011 at 07:01:46 Jon

The Tuskegee experiments were a horrible thing, but as Clinton said, what has been done cannot be undone. Sensationalizing history and distorting the facts of this case has created a pervasive fear in the black community that this sort of thing is both common and happening today. That is not the case, and it is ultimately much more harmful to the countless people who do not seek medical care because of this fear than the experiment was to the unfortunate people involved. People were not injected with the disease, black doctors were involved as well, and in the records are not secret. Unfortunately people would rather spread unnerving consiracy theories than check the facts for themselves. Finally, it is certainly not racist to evaluate diseases in tems of race since many diseases affect different ethnicities and races in very disproportionate ways.
on Thu 27 Oct 2011 at 01:53:05 proudchocolategirl

i had to watch miss evers boys in a class recently it made me sick!
on Thu 27 Oct 2011 at 01:53:41 proudchocolategirl

my comments in moderation for no reason?
on Thu 27 Oct 2011 at 02:21:58 abagond

you did something that was like a past troll. It would not be wise to say what it was.
on Thu 29 Dec 2011 at 02:35:08 indigoblu

Ok, I’m a proud alumni…only university I’ve attended that I have so much respect for. I saw this movie and everyone at TU knows it of course; it’s very unfortunate and quite telling to me concerning the nastiness of politics and racism in America.
…. but on Jan. 20th 2012, Redtail Angels—about the Tuskegee airmen is going to be released, and I’m super excited about this movie! it’s going to be so awesome because it’s about an awesome group of men. Finally, a black movie that’s will hit the screens and it’s not completely degrading to black people and is told by black people. A real black, ACTION movie, based on true events.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 10:40:40 Nom De Plume

J. Marion Sims, aka the Father of Modern Gynecology, did experiments on slave women without the use of anesthesia. Some of the women had as many as 30 experimental procedures done on them. When the doctor’s techniques were perfected, he used them on anesthetized white women.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 12:29:28 abagond

Wow, that sounds like a post to me,.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 13:24:54 Bulanik

@Abagond, re Nom De Plume’s comment on J. Marion Sims, which sounds like a post to you -

Did you read my comment under Suggestions back on 21 Sept 2010, as follows:

“Bulanik
@Abagond

History of Gynecology in the US, is a hidden history.
J. Marion Sims is the Father of this field of medical science and this was made possible by using Black women slaves to experiment on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims
He is venerated and honoured for his work. He even has a statue in Central Park, and another on Park Avenue. He has a foundation. What an achiever.

The slave he conducted the bulk of his experiments on was a woman by the name of Anarcha. She deserves a post all for herself, since she got nothing for her pains – which were intense and many.

http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/history/biographies/anarcha.htm

What were the bodies of Black women to the medical profession then, and now?

There are few disturbing parallels here with Nazi experiments on Jews during the Holocaust. The German pharmaceutical companies did fairly well as a result of this – apparently. It’s a billion $ industry. Gynecology and obstetrics is also a profitable business both in America and the rest of the world, it could be argued.”

??
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 13:29:06 Bulanik

Correction, that suggestion was posted on 21 Sept 2011.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 13:30:07 Franklin

@ Bulanik

Since you mentioned the Nazi experiments, you should take note that they weren’t the only ones to benefit from such horrible experiments. That Japanese Unit 731 did things to people that made the Nazi’s look like amateurs. The only difference in the outcome is that the latter got away with it 100%, with many of its officers being elected into the Japanese government.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 13:46:58 abagond

@ Bulanik

Sorry, I do not remember that comment, but thank you – belatedly!
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 14:31:20 leigh204

@Nom De Plume:

J. Marion Sims, aka the Father of Modern Gynecology, did experiments on slave women without the use of anesthesia. Some of the women had as many as 30 experimental procedures done on them. When the doctor’s techniques were perfected, he used them on anesthetized white women.

I read the wikipedia entry of this J. Marion Sims fellow provided by Bulanik and I was absolutely horrified by the thought of what he did to these poor slave women. Omigosh, the agony they must’ve endured.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 15:05:37 Nom De Plume

@leigh204:

I know. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 15:12:04 Nom De Plume

@bulanik:

I didn’t all of the suggestions and didn’t realize you had already mentioned this topic.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 16:12:06 Bulanik

@Abagond

I hope that this does not happen too often.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 16:20:12 Bulanik

@Nom De Plume
@Leigh204

I had really hoped that this horror finally gets the recognition it deserves, and I confess now that I was pretty upset that Abagond didn’t notice my suggestion when I first made it.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 16:29:21 Nom De Plume

@Bulanik:

I understand. Based on what you wrote upthread, you know a lot more about the subject than I do.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 16:39:38 Bulanik

@Franklin. I had no idea about that history. I shall look it up. Thank you.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 16:51:13 Bulanik

@Nom De Plume. Thank you.

It grieves me the way that the history (contribution AND suffering) of black women and women of colour is stubbornly buried, trivialized and ignored.

I don’t actually mind if anyone reading this blog-site skips or ignore any comments made by “Bulanik” ( ) – it’s the ISSUES that really matter.
I hope that this particular issue gets its long overdue profiling in our debates, and beyond.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 17:16:48 Franklin

@ Bulanik

Here ya go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 17:22:32 Franklin

Oh, and btw. After the war, America granted the surviving leaders immunity from prosecution for their war crimes, just so they could get the results of their experiments.
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 18:01:15 Bulanik

@Franklin

I went to this site first, instead of Wiki which just touches the surface:

http://www.toddlertime.com/bobbystringer/unit-731.htm
on Sat 21 Jan 2012 at 18:22:53 Demerera

@Bulanik

I read the first couple of paragraphs on this and could go no further. To say that I am a little squemish at the most minor things in day to day life is an understatment. This was just too much – truly horrific
on Tue 21 Feb 2012 at 21:00:23 Bree

I agree with Demerera. There is a situation taking place such as this one in Guatemala. “U.S. government researchers must have known they were violating ethical standards by deliberately infecting Guatemalan prison inmates and mental patients with syphilis for an experiment in the 1940s, according to a presidential commission.” See more information at: (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/us-usa-guatemala-syphilis-idUSTRE77S3L120110829)