Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis StudySusan M. Reverby Between 1932 and 1972, approximately six hundred African American men in Alabama served as unwitting guinea pigs in what is now considered one of the worst examples of arrogance, racism, and duplicity in American medical research--the Tuskegee syphilis study. Told they were being treated for "bad blood," the nearly four hundred men with late-stage syphilis and two hundred disease-free men who served as controls were kept away from appropriate treatment and plied instead with placebos, nursing visits, and the promise of decent burials. Despite the publication of more than a dozen reports in respected medical and public health journals, the study continued for forty years, until extensive media coverage finally brought the experiment to wider public knowledge and forced its end. This edited volume gathers articles, contemporary newspaper accounts, selections from reports and letters, reconsiderations of the study by many of its principal actors, and works of fiction, drama, and poetry to tell the Tuskegee story as never before. Together, these pieces illuminate the ethical issues at play from a remarkable breadth of perspectives and offer an unparalleled look at how the study has been understood over time. |
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
PART II CONTEMPORARY BACKGROUND | 39 |
PART III DOCUMENTING THE ISSUES | 71 |
PART IV THE QUESTION OF TREATMENT | 191 |
PART V HISTORICAL RECONSIDERATION | 249 |
PART VI RETHINKING THE ROLE OF NURSE RIVERS | 319 |
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a√ected African Americans aids ain’t Alabama arsphenamine autopsy Bad Blood Black Women brodus Bruusgaard caleb cardiovascular Clark clinical continued cooperation di√erences di≈cult Dibble Disease Control doctors douglas e√ective e√orts ethical evers examination families federal genocide Health Department hospital human experimentation human subjects infection informed consent interview investigators involved Jones Journal latent syphilis Macon County Male Negro medicine ment Miss Rivers moral National Nurse Rivers o√ered O≈ce o≈cer o≈cials Oslo Study participants patients penicillin persons physicians pollard problem Public Health Service question R. A. Vonderlehr race racial racism received Reverby Rosenwald Fund rural scientific senator kennedy serological social spinal spinal taps study of untreated study’s su√ered Surgeon therapy tion told treated treatment Tuskegee Experiment Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee Study Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment Tuskegee Syphilis Study Tuskegee University untreated syphilis usphs Venereal Disease Vonderlehr Washington Willie York