Blacks 'Injected' With Syphilis? Never Happened
One peculiar footnote of the Jeremiah Wright controversy has been the repetition -- by educated black men on national television -- of a stubborn myth. That the U.S. government "injected black men with syphilis."
Rev. Wright said from the pulpit, in a video clip shown on Fox News: "The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment! They purposely infected African-American men with syphilis!"
Wright is wrong. That's not what the Tuskegee experiment was.
In the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male," federal researchers refused to treat a group of black men who already had syphilis, long after a cure had been found.
Instead, doctors treated these men like laboratory animals, studying the course of the disease over decades.
The Tuskegee experiment was the most shameful episode in the history of the U.S. Public Health Service. President Bill Clinton apologized on behalf of the nation in 1997.
But the government did not infect black men with syphilis.
To invoke the Tuskegee experiment to suggest that the government invented AIDS to kill black people, as Rev. Wright did... that dishonors the truth. There is no excuse for it. It must stop.
Yet here's what Obery Hendricks, a professor at New York Theological Seminary, said on "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday night in defense of Rev. Wright: "We do know the government injected black men with syphilis."
On "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on Tuesday, journalist Ed Gordon said it's "not so far-fetched" to suppose that AIDS is weapon of genocide... considering that "the government was giving syphilis to black men."
Likewise, CNN contributor Roland Martin said last Friday: "I was watching another channel where they played a sermon where [Rev. Wright] said that America infected African-American men with
syphilis, called the Tuskegee experiment. That actually did, indeed, happen."
No. It. Did. Not.
And the only reason Obery Hendricks, Ed Gordon and Roland Martin weren't humiliated on national television is because Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews and Anderson Cooper are more ignorant about black history than they are.
I can't believe that none of those well-educated black gentlemen has read the highly praised book "Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment." Or seen the HBO movie "Miss Evers' Boys."
I recommend they do so before popping off again in public about the Tuskegee experiment. Same goes for Jeremiah Wright.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
What's the effective difference, here? They killed and made people suffering by using humans as guinea pigs and withheld treatment, or, the just gave the men the disease. Either way is barbaric.
Don't maks yourself an apologist for this ugly mess.
You make me sad about the human race.
Most people today agree that slavery was barbaric. But if you went back 200 years or 500 years then most people probably thought differently.
A large percentage of people today think abortion is barbaric. Perhaps 50 years from now everyone will agree with that, and your grandkids will ask you why you ever allowed such a barbaric thing to take place in our great country.
So I don't think it's really fair to judge doctors in 1932 by 2008 ethics. The context must be acknowledged even if not agreed with. In this case that context is that the standard available treatment was costly, dangerous or deadly, and not very effective. The ethical standard for informed consent is very clear now, but at the time it was not so. The fact that this was a historically black college and was administered by some black doctors and black nurses should be considered as well.
Either watch the movie, or do the research - they were forced to continue at Tuskeegee, even after being told of the "true experiment", while those who entered the military, got penicillin. And yes, I CAN judge doctors of 1932, or today that takes the oath. Another thing worth mentioning maybe, is the "origin" of the disease. Same with Indians, and Hawaiians - which along with leprosy, common colds, measles. All diseases not experienced by the indigenous, before "co-habitation" And, usually started with the females of each -hhhhmmmmm
Huffpost, please keep David Mills article on this page, move it back up.
After all that has gone on last week, his article is necessary because it
brings about very important issues and the many non-important ones being given prominence.
Too many posters have not had the opportunity to read this article because of the Easter Weekend.
PLEASE MOVE IT BACK UP!
GREATLY APPRECIATED!
My Priviouse Post May Have Left The Impression That The Quote Was The authors It Was An Article By Borgna Brunner
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
The U.S. government's 40-year experiment on black men with syphilis
For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all.
http://www
by Borgna Brunner
-Sarge1
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
The U.S. government's 40-year experiment on black men with syphilis
The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”
-Borgna Brunner
"The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens..
—President Clinton's apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the eight remaining survivors, May 16, 1997
I Truly Would Like For You To Search Your Soul, You Are The Very Worse Kind Of Journalist Or Human Being If You do Not Retract This. You Are 100% Correct In These Men Not Being Injected Or Infected, The Moral Issue Is That The US Government Used These Men As Human Lab Animals. The United States In Fact With Not Treating These Men Could have Advanced The Spread Of This Disease In The Black Community Since Syphilis Is A Communicable Disease.
I'll Put It To You Like This If Your Child Was Diagnosed With A Disease The Was 100% Treatable It Was Hidden From you, This Disease's Long Term Effects Could Cripple And Lead To Brain Damage . What Would Your Reaction Be? So Would The Title Of This Piece Be the Same Or Would It And The Context Be Written With Less Condensation ?
-Sarge1
The ethical standard for informed consent was not set until the Nuremburg Code in 1947. Since this study began in 1932, and since the standard treatment at that time was costly, dangerous, and not very effective, it's reasonable for this historically black college to undertake such a study.
Once the Nuremburg code was adopted, there's really no excuse for continuing this study past 1947. The fact that the CDC reiterated it's necessity 20 years later just shows how flawed research ethics can be.
Even today there are certain facets of research ethics that I think are disturbingly out of date. But most people don't question research ethics, and let the scientists do pretty much anything they want.
Imagine what we would be talking about if the US Public Health Service had sought
to identify and NOT TREAT men with syphilis who were
Poor White Irish American Men
Poor White Polish American Men
Poor White Men of a certain religious faith
The victims of Tuskegee were not told the truth about their "bad blood" & not treated for their disease.
They in turn infected their wives and through childbirth, their children.
Mr. Mills did the United States Government in fact deliberately infect these women and children?
Or am I "popping off" by believing that "YES" the Government is responsible for infecting
these AMERICAN CITIZENS?
As the doctor noted, once the initial chancre and the lesions of secondary syphlis are gone, the patient is no longer infectious.
But still when we look at this from an ethical standpoint, there is only a very small difference between on the one hand, identifying and not treating and on the other, infecting someone with syphilis and not treating them for it.
In consequence the two are the same: the men die of syphilis.
In intentions, the two are very similar: one is an act of non-intervention, the other an act of purposeful infection. But in both cases the doctors have the choice to help the patients and choose not to. Thus many doctors would argue that non-intervention is ethically equivalent to active harm(infection).
The facts are different, but the ethics are roughly equivalent. So basically, we're really splitting hairs here.
"Splitting hairs." Really? So, as far as you're considered, whenever the Tuskegee experiment is mentioned in public... by preachers, by professors, by broadcast news people... they should say: "The government infected black men with syphilis."
I think David's point is , many people will see this argument and think "if it didn't happen just as you describe it, it didn't happen at all". There lies the danger. It is very easy for some to say since there was no injection, there was no "experiment". Another way to diminish the messenger.
On the topic of HIV/AIDS, if someone had "invented" it, someone else would have announced a cure by now. There is too much money and fame at risk for every doctor/scientist to go along with a cover up. Many diseases can pass between species. Syphillis is one such disease. It occurs naturally in sheep , for example. How did it jump to humans? Think "shepherds watching their flocks by night".
HIV/AIDS exists in other primates. The close proximity of humans and monkeys in some parts of the world may be the vector. (No , I'm not saying sex, the species I am talking about are too small for that).
Monkey bites are not uncommon in areas where they are competing for living space with humans. This is a huge problem in India right now. While we as Americans my be judgemental about this, there are also areas where monkeys are eaten. (Hey, they're as abundant as squirrels are here.)
Missionaries and medical people also bear some of the blame. They sold people in underpriviledged areas on the idea that it's not medicine if it doesn't come out of a needle. Then when the needle supply ran short, whole villages were innoculated using the same ONE needle.
If all we do is argue about the source, we'll never see the cure.
Tuskegee is near where I grew up and attended college. Booker T. Washington was one of America's best minds. The fact that this experiment happened there is a permanent blot on America's reputation.
If we present it falsely, it only serves to take away from the lessons we should be learning.
As the word parsing continues, one thing is certain: To blindly defend a government that see itself beyond the reach of rebuke and transcendent of any retribution, is a mockery to intelligence. Some seem to think that America is beyond the harsh cruelties it has perpetrated throughout the course of history. Although I reject that there is a "coven" of government
Offended people will always try to find loopholes and the "conspiracy theories" in their attempts to buffer America from criticism and animosity. This is called "patriotism". This often comes from those who have a low sensitivity to cultures other than their own. Next, some will say that lynching was some "strange experiment" to test the laws of gravity and the limb density of trees. Face it. America has a history of atrocious behavior toward sectors of its citizens. To try to disprove that which history has shown the American government's complicity in, is very insensitive to the reality of people who lived as victorious victims of such shenanigans. True patriotism is those who gave and continue to give their lives for a country that has not always seen them as people worthy of the consideration of the majority. True patriotism is those who have worked to build the edifices of this country yet having to enter into the rear doors and color specific facilties. These people did not, have not, and will not give up on a country that often demonizes their concerns as anti-American, racist, and its newest term, liberationist theologians (as if a people's liberation is anti-American- ask Patrick Henry). We still believe in America even if sometimes, it doesn't even give us the benefit of the doubt.
Everybody needs to stop popping off before they know what they're talking about. Whites, blacks, and everybody else in today's media say things without checking into the background of what they're saying. To me the problem is one of our media and it no longer having any concern for accuracy and the truth preferring spin and exaggeration in its place. Thank God for the internet is all I have to say.
Your post is literally true, but morally bizarre.
Why is telling the truth about what really happened 'morally bizarre'?
What is 'morally bizarre' is continuing the charade, having it exposed as untrue later, and then having the whole sorry episode called into question because a key element of the story turned out to be untrue. If these leaders don't get their story straight now, what do you think is going to happen to them once someone with other-than
Read it again. Mills never diminished what happened. He is simply teaching a valuable history lesson so that our debate will be based on truth. He emphasized that this was the 'most shameful episode in the history of the U.S. Public Health Service.' Lets not undermine that statement by inserting untruths. Honor the Tuskegee Airmen by telling exactly what happened, and making sure it will never again happen.
Don't confuse the Tuskegee Airmen with the Tuskegee Experiment.
Oh, and PS regarding my previous post: Does anyone know which candidates are going to take part in the AAAS sponsored presidential candidate science debates? I didn't think so.
So I guess since they weren't infected, and only not treated and used as lab rats that makes it any better. What is the point of this story? These men were used to find out what the effects of this disease would cause, and some of them died from it. You're arguing apples and oranges. And even once it was admitted to, were these families compensated in any way? NO. We didn't kill them, we just kicked their a** a little bit. The author wrote a foolish argument.
Oeht wrote: "And even once it was admitted to, were these families compensated in any way? NO."
Actually, the answer is YES. (As was discussed elsewhere on this thread.)
The "point of this story" was to highlight the confusion and ignorance surrounding this historical episode. Your comment illustrates why such a post was necessary.
Is it any surprise that we continue to believe what we believe? To actually take the effort to examine the basis for beliefs, whether a person is a scientist or a regular Joe 6 pack, requires doing some research and that would take us away from what we love, like professional sports, march madness and celebrity scandal...
"And the only reason Obery Hendricks, Ed Gordon and Roland Martin weren't humiliated on national television is because Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews and Anderson Cooper are more ignorant about black history than they are."
With all its implications for informed consent and medical ethics, it is Interesting that this is categorized by you as "black" history.
By me and Jeremiah Wright alike.
Right, so you and Reverend Wright can stay stuck in the anger and division of the past. It's time for the rest of us to move on, to accept "black" history as integral to our nation's history and to stop classifying it as a separate notion.
Folks often have a hard time dealing with disasters of all sorts, including those of disease, and look for "explanations" for the vagaries of nature. Diseases do, indeed, "jump" species; but that's just hard for many to accept. The early history of the AIDS crisis and tragic episodes like Tuskegee don't help.
For all that, many are neglecting the HIV/AIDS ministry of Trinity United Church of Christ Chicago. Whatever the myths about how things got started, the church is approaching the treatment and cure in a scientifically sound manner, with admirable support and outreach to HIV/AIDS patients.
And the doctors did not refuse to treat the black men as you stated. Black men who acquired syphilis in the community were simply not treated as a control to see the natural life history of the disease.
They were not aware of the disease. The doctors were. They refused to treat them.
"They were not aware of the disease"
Wrong, these men were, for the most part, illiterate share croppers with little or no understanding of their medical condition, except that they knew they had "bad blood" which is different than being unaware. When the government came into their community, they were "grateful" for the attention and free medical care they recieved, that for many, it never occurred to them that there was a much more nefarious reason behind the sudden windfall of medical treatment.
On July 23rd, eight months after the Tuskegee syphilis study was abandoned, a $1.8 billion class action suit was filed against the institutions and individuals involved. Prominent civil rights lawyer, Fred Gray, demanded $3 million in damages for each living participant and the heirs of the deceased. The case, however, never came to trial and in December 1974 and out of court settlement was made. The government agreed to the distribution of $10 million, whereby each survivor received $37,500 in damages and the heirs of the deceased received $15,000
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
