Reflecting on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

Syphilis is characterized as sexually transmitted venereal disease that if left untreated can cause heart disease, blindness, insanity, tumors, paralysis and death. In an embarrassment to the United States, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted an experiment on 399 black men in Tuskegee, Alabama. This experimentation that lasted forty years from 1932 to 1972 was not authorized by its test subjects. These human guinea pigs were disadvantaged African Americans, mostly impoverished and illiterate sharecroppers that were misled in participating by offering them "free treatment" and funeral expenses.

The basis of the experimentation was to see how syphilis affected blacks as opposed to Caucasians. It was believed that syphilis affected whites neurologically while in blacks it leads to cardiovascular degeneration. The experiments consisted of leaving the subjects untreated and observing and recording symptoms and complications, and finally performing an autopsy. To assure the subjects returned they lured them by promoting "Last Chance for Special Free Treatment"- which was actually a potentially dangerous spinal tap. One doctor involved in the experiments was quoted saying “As I see it, we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”

Throughout the experiment, its conductors contended that its subjects did not receive any type of treatment. They were deliberately denied medication that would have cured them, even during WWII when some men registered for the draft and were consequently exempt from receiving the required medication. By the end of the experiment, 28 died directly from the disease, 100 0thers died of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected and 19 of their children were born with it. The information obtained has not assisted in the clinical treatment of syphilis and their main objective for the experiments outcome is unclear. “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.”

It is important to remember instances such as these in American History that are rarely spoken of. There is clearly a racial aspect of the experiments and a superior attitude expressed by the government officials that issued this unfortunate project. Not many people know about the Tuskegee Experiments; however it is an event that highlights the ongoing discrimination and disregard for disadvantaged African Americans that the United States has expressed since its foundation. The fact that this was a government issued project makes it difficult for many African Americans to trust healthcare today. If our own government is capable of deliberately not treating a degenerative disease it has to make one wonder what else they are willing to experiment.