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
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.
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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.
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What’s more insulting is not a single “researcher” was ever prosecuted. Heck, I would at least strip everyone of their licenses.
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@ 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?
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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.
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Who was the president who said that? Clinton or Bush?
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@ 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!!!
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Here is the medical arm of oppression coming through, yesterday it was the police arm. They are all the same.
F the government.
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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”.
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*think because
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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…
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@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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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..
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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
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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.
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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…)
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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/
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The tales of whitey’s evil run strong. Or is the devil so black (no pun intended).
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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.
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..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.
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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.
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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
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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!
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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.
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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*
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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!
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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.
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you did something that was like a past troll. It would not be wise to say what it was.
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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.
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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.
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Wow, that sounds like a post to me,.
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@ 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.
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@ Bulanik
Sorry, I do not remember that comment, but thank you – belatedly!
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@Nom De Plume:
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. 😦
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@leigh204:
I know. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it.
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@bulanik:
I didn’t all of the suggestions and didn’t realize you had already mentioned this topic.
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@Bulanik:
I understand. Based on what you wrote upthread, you know a lot more about the subject than I do.
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@ Bulanik
Here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
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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.
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@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 😦
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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)
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To Y, the first responder,
I agree with you. But the government didn’t give them syphilis, they found that they had previously contracted it and used them in the study. Not that this is making an excuse for their actions at all, just wanted to let you know the facts.
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German scientists inserted the HIV viruses into thousands of unsuspecting Africans-and thus the African Aids epidemic began.
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“Guatemalans deliberately infected with STDs sue Johns Hopkins University for $1bn”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/02/johns-hopkins-lawsuit-deliberate-std-infections-guatemala
“Nearly 800 plaintiffs have launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against Johns Hopkins University over its alleged role in the deliberate infection of hundreds of vulnerable Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis and gonorrhoea, during a medical experiment programme in the 1940s and 1950s.”
“The experiments, which occurred between 1945 and 1956, were kept secret until they were discovered in 2010 by a college professor, Susan Reverby. The programme published no findings and did not inform Guatemalans who were infected of the consequences of their participation, nor did it provide them with follow up medical care or inform them of ways to prevent the infections spreading, the lawsuit states.
Orphans, prisoners and mental health patients were deliberately infected in the experiments.”
“Many have died as a result of deliberate infection and others had passed on disease to family members and partners.”
“Marta Orellana was a nine-year-old orphan when she was included in the experiments. In an interview with the Guardian in 2011 she recalled being forcibly examined by light-complexioned foreigners and a Guatemalan doctor in the orphanage infirmary.
“They never told me what they were doing, never gave me a chance to say no,” Orellana said “I’ve lived almost my whole life without knowing the truth. May God forgive them.””
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Reblogged this on IBHE Collaborative University and commented:
Good for history of public health
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[…] Tuskegee Experiment […]
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1st, was Joseph Mengel, the Angel of Death in the Auschwitz concentration camp, back in the 1940s…
2nd, were the doctors of the Tuskegee Experiment in the USA (1932-1972)…
and finally,
3rd, was Alexander Jones, Wouter Basson and other operatives of the Apartheid state in South Africa, in the 1980s, and beyond, intentionally helping HIV-AIDS take root in Southern African societies and killing millions people in the process…
The parallels are astonishing of how the inhumane mind works similarly in so different locations and moments in history.
For more details about the 3rd case see, https://newafricanmagazine.com/18285/
Note —
I do believe that the HIV virus came naturally to human populations from another species. But the way we observed the explosion of AIDS cases in Southern Africa in the early 1990s, was always intriguing. It appeared to jump from Central Africa to Southern African in a time when we had low migratory waves between the two sub-regions. I do believe that it was “accelerated” intentionally by the operatives of the Apartheid regime, in a variant of biological warfare against African populations.
Ironically, the 3rd case not only killed more people but hadn’t any “medical research” purposes in itself, contrary to other two!
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