Tuskegee Experiment
For forty years starting in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on four hundred black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men were mostly illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, and were never told what disease they were suffering from. They were instead informed that they were being treated for "bad blood." Their doctors did not intend to cure them of syphilis at all. The data for the experiment was supposed to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to suffer the miseries of syphilis-which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death.
When these facts become known in 1972, detailed inquires were made into the motivations of the experiment. Several reasons emerged. First, early in the study there existed a clear need for establishing blood tests for syphilis and for characterizing a control group. Second, after penicillin was discovered the researchers wanted to preserve an untreated group for long-term study in a society in which most infected people would receive treatment quickly. The Tuskegee experiment left deep scars among African Americans in the South. Much skepticism exists toward current programs connected with AIDS, for example.
- To what extent were the intentions behind the Tuskegee experiment valid?
- What role do you think racial attitudes toward African-Americans played?
