Bad Blood Study

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was an experiment on African American males and the effects of untreated syphilis. When the study began in 1932, the men were not fully aware of what the doctors were “treating” them with. They were wrongly informed that they were receiving treatments for “bad blood”. In reality, about 600 Alabama participants were infected with syphilis. Unfortunately, as these men were not aware of the virus they carried, they infected their loved ones as well. The men in this study were drawn in by the promise of medical benefits and more. As the study continued on, penicillin was found to be a cure for syphilis in 1947. However, it was withheld from these men and they continued to suffer unnecessarily. Finally, in 1972 the truth

The experiment first began in 1932, in a small county within the Macon County of Alabama area. In this are rate of syphilis was up by 35%. Interestingly, the setting of the study was conducted at the Tuskegee Institute, which we know now to be Tuskegee University. The study conducted of 399 men, 201 out of the 399 were used as the control group. The control group contained of those who actually didn’t have the diseases. The study also targeted those who were poor and illiterate. A lot of those patients had the slightest clue to which they were being tested for, only being told they had “bad blood”. The doctors participating in the study thought it would be vital; to not inform

As a result, 28 men died directly due to syphilis, 100 men died due to complication, 40 of the mens wives were infected, and 19 of their children had been born with genital syphilis. The study ended in July of 1972 because of an article in the Associated Press, this story led to a public outcry and caused Heath and Science Affairs to appoint someone to review the study. Throughout the reviewing of the study they declared the study was unethical. (Unknown, http://www.cdc.gov)

In 1932 the federal government commenced a medical study called The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Blacks with Syphilis in Macon County, Alabama. Four hundred and twelve men infected with the disease were selected for the study that faked long term treatment while really only giving placebos and liniments. The goal of this study was to determine if blacks reacted similar to the whites to the effects of the syphilis disease. After forty years it was discontinued and the Senate initiated an investigation of the study. At the time of the investigation, only one hundred and twenty-seven of the study’s original participants were still alive and had not died from the disease (Morehan, 2007). In the film, the story is told from the view point of

The book BAD BLOOD: THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT by James H. Jones was a very powerful compilation of years of astounding research, numerous interviews, and some very interesting positions on the ethical and moral issues associated with the study of human beings under the Public Health Service (PHS). "The Tuskegee study had nothing to do with treatment … it was a nontherapeutic experiment, aimed at compiling data on the effects of the spontaneous evolution of syphilis in black males" (Jones pg. 2). Jones is very opinionated throughout the book; however, he carefully documents the foundation of those opinions with quotes from letters and medical journals.

According the to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was conducted in 1932 by the Public Health, which included 600 black men as their test subjects. Of the 600 men, 399 had syphilis and 201 didn’t (CDC). The men were told that they were being treated for “Bad Blood” and didn’t have any knowledge of being included in a study (CDC). In exchange for their services, researchers offered the men free medical exams, burial insurance, and free meals (CDC). The study was called “ The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” (CDC).

In 1932, in the area surrounding Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Rosenwald Foundation began a survey and small treatment program for African-Americans with syphilis. Within a few months, the deepening depression, the lack of funds from the foundation, and the large number of untreated cases provied the government’s reseachers with what seemed to be an unprecedented opportunity to study a seemingly almost “natural” experimentation of lantent syphilis in African-American men. What had begun as a “treatment” program thus was converted by the PHS reasearchers, under the imprimatur of the Surgeon General and with knowledge and consent of the

The doctors and the nurse were more interested in gathering scientific data than showing concern for these African men’s human rights. There was no concern for the ethical issues involving these victims. The syphilis scientific study was written about in medical journals for many years but community outrage did not happen until a reporter exposed the study to the general public. The scientific syphilis study ended after it was exposed to the public.

The study would be originally known as the “Tuskegee Study of the Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro,” and would last for 40 years, from 1932 to 1972, (Warren, 496). It consisted of about a total of 600 men, 399 of which had Syphilis and 201 who did not whom served as controls for the study. The men who had the disease already were ones that had been in the later stages of it, insisting that the study was being used to understand the more serious complications and what it did to the human body. This study in which was racially motivated was essentially set up to research the effects of untreated syphilis in the Black male. It was a study that was created to ultimately prove scientifically, the inferiority of black people

Thus firstly, past medical treatments provided and studies for syphilis were largely influenced by social darwinism ideology, common usage of African Americans as test subjects, and present knowledge about syphilis at the time, contributed to this study experiment being performed.

Tuskegee Syphilis Study was originally a program to help improve the health of poor African Americans in the south, but later on, in the program, a dark turn was taken, and it ended up harming African Americans instead of helping. Starting in the 1900s syphilis was a widely spread sexually transmitted disease. In 1905 Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffman discovered the bacteria that causes syphilis and then a year later August Wassermann introduced the first diagnostic blood test to identify syphilis (page 747). Then, in 1911 Paul Ehrlich created salvarsan, and although it could not treat syphilis it could halt the disease and prevent it from being infectious (page 747). Unfortunately, these events lead to the U.S. Public Health Service and Julius Rosenwald Fund creating a program to diagnose and treat syphilis in African Americans down in Mason County, Alabama (page 747).

There is speculation that minorities, particularly Blacks, are discouraged from research, because of the dishonesty in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. In this study, medical treatment was withheld from African-American men, who were infected with syphilis.

In the documentary, George Strait tells us the truth behind the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. The study was carried out in Macon County, Alabama between 1932 and 1972 on a large group of black men. About four hundred men were infected with syphilis, a disease sometimes called “bad blood”, while the other two hundred served as the control group. It aimed to discover whether blacks would react to syphilis the same way as whites, and to decide how long a person could live with the disease without treatment. The men that were used in the research were left untreated with syphilis for forty years and suffered hugely at the hands of government doctors.

Why did these Black men take part in this study where they were getting little benefits? Why did the health professionals not worry about the ethics of this study? It was racial attitudes in America that helped keep this study alive. So many white Americans, including the white physicians involved, were convinced that syphilis was a black disease and whites could only get it from blacks spreading it. For anyone to say that race didn’t play a role in the Tuskegee study is impossible.

Tuskegee’s study of untreated syphilis is a notorious clinical study that was initiated in 1932 and ended in 1972. This study was initiated by the US Public Health Department and performed by the government physicians. The main purpose of this study was to assess the natural progression of the untreated syphilis. They included 399 men who had syphilis and 201 men who hadn’t have syphilis. Initially the study started to treat the syphilis, but even after there was no enough budget, they didn’t stop the study. The physicians had promised that the study participants were given free treatment of the syphilis but the fact was that the physicians and “US Public Health Department” were assessing the progression of the syphilis and not giving the treatment to the participants. Participants were unaware about this clinical research. In addition to this, participants were told about insurance, but they hadn’t been provided insurance.