The Tuskegee Experiment

African Americans and other minorities are still haunted by the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment that took place over a period of forty years - from 1932 to 1972 - the year I enter medical school. The experiment was conducted by the United States Public Health Service, the Alabama State Department of Health, the Macon County Health Department, Tuskegee Institute, the Tuskegee Veterans’ Hospital, and private physicians in Macon County, Alabama.

The experiment was preformed on more than 400 hundred African American men who suffered from syphilis. These men were told that they had “bad blood” and that their treatment was no more than “aspirin and iron tonic”. The men had been encouraged to participate in the study by an African American nurse who served as the facilitator between them and the physicians. For their participation, the men received free physical examinations, hot meals on the date of the examination, treatment for minor illnesses, and burial insurance. Some reports say these men were never told they had syphilis while other reports refute that accusation. All of the reports do indicate that the men were never treated for syphilis, but rather were observed for decades to see the effect that the disease had on them. At the start of the experiment, 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 and the experiment continued.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to this day still resonates through the African American community and causes many African Americans to distrust physicians. It truly was a medical embarrassment for our country.

I am Dr. Thaddeus John Bell --- Closing the Gap in Health Disparities for African Americans.

Bell Update Volume 3, Chapter 5

Copyright February 2008