The Tuskeegee study group set up an experiment to follow up on a 1928 study done in Oslo to determine if the histories provided for the Oslo study were accurate. The original study had reported the kinds of effects untreated Syphilis could cause. Tuskeegee was a traditionally Black college in Alabama. For the study, 600 Black men from the area, all of whom were from impoverished areas and sharecropping households. 399 of these men had latent Syphilis, while 201 were set as the control group. The men were promised free medical care, though all promised care was actually in the form of placebos, not actual treatment of their illness. The men in the study were never told of their full illness, just told they had "bad blood," which is what they were being treated for. The study went on for 40 years, ending in 1972, when the press got wind of the study, causing the university to shut down the experiment. The men in the experiment were not the only ones affected by it. Women who had married some of the participants had also contracted their disease, and 19 children with congenital Syphilis were born during the experiment. Four white men, Taliaferro Clark, Raymond H. Vonderlehr, John R. Heller, and Oliver C. Wenger, and a Black doctor, Eugene Dibble, and a Black nurse, Eunice Rivers, were responsible for beginning and running the experiment. Dr Dibble's part in the study leaves some doubt as to how much he knew about the intentions of his white colleagues. Throughout the study, many expressed objections to the study, stating immorality and poor scientific practice. A venereal disease expert, Peter Buxtun, contacted the CDC in 1966, expressing concerns over the length of the study. The CDC declined to end the study at that time, feeling the need to autopsy all members of the study for further information. Finally, in 1972, Buxtun took his concerns to the press, and the news spread across the country quickly. Outcry resulted in a panel to look into the experiment. The panel determined that the study was unjustified because the men were not informed of the true purpose of the study, nor were they treated in any medical way. The NAACP sued the US government and received $10 million for the surviving participants and their families, along with a promise for free medical treatment for any surviving participants and any family members who were medically affected by the study.
Sources:
- Wikipedia: Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment
- CNN: Studies Show 'Dark Chapter' of Medical Research
- Time: How the Public Learned About the Infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study
- The Atlantic: A Generation of Bad Blood
- Britannica: Tuskeegee Syphilis Study
- History: Tuskeegee Experiment: The Infamous Syphilis Study
- CDC: Tuskeegee Study - Timeline
- Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment: Doctors Involved
- Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment
- Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment
- Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiment
- Generations Later, the Effects of the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study Linger
Most people know the name Mengele and what he did to Jewish people, but how many even know the name of the Tuskeegee Experiment? How many know what it was about, or how long it lasted, not to mention how many it effected? Clinton apologized for what had happened, but that didn't undo what had been done. And yet, even today, it is not well known. This kind of experimentation is likely to happen again if we don't keep talking about it. But it wasn't the worst thing on this list by far. My next article will cover one of the worst massacres of Black people in US history.
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