Bad BloodFrom 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service conducted a non-therapeutic experiment involving over 400 black male sharecroppers infected with syphilis. The Tuskegee Study had nothing to do with treatment. Its purpose was to trace the spontaneous evolution of the disease in order to learn how syphilis affected black subjects. From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service conducted a non-therapeutic experiment involving over 400 black male sharecroppers infected with syphilis. The Tuskegee Study had nothing to do with treatment. Its purpose was to trace the spontaneous evolution of the disease in order to learn how syphilis affected black subjects. The men were not told they had syphilis; they were not warned about what the disease might do to them; and, with the exception of a smattering of medication during the first few months, they were not given health care. Instead of the powerful drugs they required, they were given aspirin for their aches and pains. Health officials systematically deceived the men into believing they were patients in a government study of “bad blood”, a catch-all phrase black sharecroppers used to describe a host of illnesses. At the end of this 40 year deathwatch, more than 100 men had died from syphilis or related complications. “Bad Blood” provides compelling answers to the question of how such a tragedy could have been allowed to occur. Tracing the evolution of medical ethics and the nature of decision making in bureaucracies, Jones attempted to show that the Tuskegee Study was not, in fact, an aberration, but a logical outgrowth of race relations and medical practice in the United States. Now, in this revised edition of “Bad Blood”, Jones traces the tragic consequences of the Tuskegee Study over the last decade. A new introduction explains why the Tuskegee Study has become a symbol of black oppression and a metaphor for medical neglect, inspiring a prize-winning play, a Nova special, and a motion picture. A new concluding chapter shows how the black community's wide-spread anger and distrust caused by the Tuskegee Study has hampered efforts by health officials to combat AIDS in the black community. “Bad Blood” was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the “N.Y. Times” 12 best books of the year. |
Contents
A Moral Astigmatism | 1 |
A Notoriously SyphilisSoaked Race | 16 |
Disease Germs Are the Most Democratic | 30 |
1 | 38 |
4 | 45 |
367 | 61 |
Buying Ear Muffs for the Hottentots | 78 |
Mud or Glory | 91 |
The Joy of My Life | 151 |
11 | 171 |
12 | 188 |
34 | 203 |
14 | 211 |
Is It Genocide? | 220 |
Notes | 242 |
A Note on Sources | 280 |
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Common terms and phrases
AIDS Alabama Andrew Hospital Atlanta Author's Interview autopsies bad blood black community black health black physician Board of Health Brown Buxtun cians clinicians clinics cooperation county health Cumming Davis death Deibert derlehr Dibble discussion Disease Control drugs ethical examinations experiment explained federal Fund's genocide government doctors health departments human experimentation Ibid infected July 27 living lumbar punctures Macon County medicine ment moral Moton NA-WNRC National Negro Health Problem neoarsphenamine November Nurse Rivers panel Parran patients penicillin percent PHS officers physi physicians private physicians public health officials Public Health Service race racial responsibility Rosenwald Fund rural scientific sexual Social Hygiene social hygienists Southern spinal taps Study of Untreated study's subjects syph syphilis control demonstrations TF-CDC therapy Thomas Parran thought tion told treated treatment program Tuskegee Institute Tuskegee Study Untreated Syphilis Venereal Disease Vonderlehr to Clark Wassermann Wenger wrote Dr York