Hampton
6th December 2005, 06:32
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/library/historical/medical_history/bad_blood/assets/brochure.jpg
For forty years, from 1932 to 1972, 399 African-American males were denied treatment for syphilis and deceived by officials of the United States Public Health Service. As part of a study conducted in Macon County, Alabama, poor sharecroppers were told they were being treated for “bad blood.”In fact, the physicians in charge of the study ensured that these men went untreated. In the 25 years since its details first were revealed, the Tuskegee Syphilis study has become a powerful symbol of racism in medicine, ethical misconduct in human research, and goverment abuse of the vulnerable.
The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to ensure their cooperation. The sharecroppers' grossly disadvantaged lot in life made them easy to manipulate. Pleased at the prospect of free medical care —almost none of them had ever seen a doctor before— these unsophisticated and trusting men became the pawns in what James Jones, author of the excellent history on the subject, Bad Blood, identified as “the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history.”
The study was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks as opposed to whites —the theory being that whites experienced more neurological complications from syphilis, whereas blacks were more susceptible to cardiovascular damage. How this knowledge would have changed clinical treatment of syphilis is uncertain.
Although the PHS touted the study as one of great scientific merit, from the outset its actual benefits were hazy. It took almost forty years before someone involved in the study took a hard and honest look at the end results, reporting that “nothing learned will prevent, find, or cure a single case of infectious syphilis or bring us closer to our basic mission of controlling venereal disease in the United States.”
At the start of the study, there was no proven treatment for syphilis. But even after penicillin became a standard cure for the disease in 1947, the medicine was withheld from the men. The Tuskegee scientists wanted to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. The experiment lasted four decades, until public health workers leaked the story to the media.
When the experiment was brought to the attention of the media in 1972, news anchor Harry Reasoner described it as an experiment that “used human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”
By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis. How had these men been induced to endure a fatal disease in the name of science?
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207586)
Bad Blood (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/blood.htm)
Clinton to apologize for Tuskegee syphilis experiment (http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/08/tuskegee/)
United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study (http://www.realblacktalk.com/NewFiles/TuskegeeExperiment/TuskegeeExperimentp1.jpg)
http://www.steelhorsemag.com/AidsConsp02.jpg
http://www.evilscience.net/institutions/halloffame/pic2.jpg
For forty years, from 1932 to 1972, 399 African-American males were denied treatment for syphilis and deceived by officials of the United States Public Health Service. As part of a study conducted in Macon County, Alabama, poor sharecroppers were told they were being treated for “bad blood.”In fact, the physicians in charge of the study ensured that these men went untreated. In the 25 years since its details first were revealed, the Tuskegee Syphilis study has become a powerful symbol of racism in medicine, ethical misconduct in human research, and goverment abuse of the vulnerable.
The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to ensure their cooperation. The sharecroppers' grossly disadvantaged lot in life made them easy to manipulate. Pleased at the prospect of free medical care —almost none of them had ever seen a doctor before— these unsophisticated and trusting men became the pawns in what James Jones, author of the excellent history on the subject, Bad Blood, identified as “the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history.”
The study was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks as opposed to whites —the theory being that whites experienced more neurological complications from syphilis, whereas blacks were more susceptible to cardiovascular damage. How this knowledge would have changed clinical treatment of syphilis is uncertain.
Although the PHS touted the study as one of great scientific merit, from the outset its actual benefits were hazy. It took almost forty years before someone involved in the study took a hard and honest look at the end results, reporting that “nothing learned will prevent, find, or cure a single case of infectious syphilis or bring us closer to our basic mission of controlling venereal disease in the United States.”
At the start of the study, there was no proven treatment for syphilis. But even after penicillin became a standard cure for the disease in 1947, the medicine was withheld from the men. The Tuskegee scientists wanted to continue to study how the disease spreads and kills. The experiment lasted four decades, until public health workers leaked the story to the media.
When the experiment was brought to the attention of the media in 1972, news anchor Harry Reasoner described it as an experiment that “used human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”
By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis. How had these men been induced to endure a fatal disease in the name of science?
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207586)
Bad Blood (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/blood.htm)
Clinton to apologize for Tuskegee syphilis experiment (http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/08/tuskegee/)
United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study (http://www.realblacktalk.com/NewFiles/TuskegeeExperiment/TuskegeeExperimentp1.jpg)
http://www.steelhorsemag.com/AidsConsp02.jpg
http://www.evilscience.net/institutions/halloffame/pic2.jpg