The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments remains one of the most appalling instances of government-sponsored mistreatment of Black people. On this day in 1972, after decades of unethical study, a whistleblower publicly exposed the experiments via a newspaper article.
The experiments began in 1932, when 600 poor sharecroppers from Macon County, Ala. were duped into thinking they were receiving treatment for “bad blood,” a vague term used for a variety of conditions, at the Tuskegee Institute. For 40 years, the U.S. Public Health Service studied the effects of untreated syphilis in those men, purposely leaving them sick.
Researchers knew that 399 of these men already had syphilis, and continued to keep them and their families in the dark about the true nature of the study. By 1947, penicillin became widely accepted as a treatment after initial studies in 1943 showed it to be effective.
However, the experiments continued, leading to the spread of the disease among the men’s families, including their children. In the end, 28 men died from syphilis, 100 died due to related issues, 40 of the wives contracted the disease, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.
In 1966, a white Public Health Service venereal disease investigator, Peter Buxtun, voiced his concerns with the moral and ethical implications at play with the study. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) pushed back, stating the study needed to continue and had support from Black medical associations. Other Public Health Service employees tried to bring light to the study’s terrible aims, but it appeared the medical community at large supported the work at Tuskegee.
After being blocked by his peers in the medical community, Buxtun was finally able to get someone to run the story. The Washington Star published his account that the PHS and CDC willfully kept these men sick and suffering the side effects of a deadly disease. Sen. Edward Kennedy called a series of Congressional hearings where Buxtun and other opponents testified, and the program was closed that year. The NAACP filed a class action lawsuit that was settled for $9 million, and free treatment was promised for the surviving Tuskegee patients and their families.
In 1974, Congress passed the National Research Act, which helped develop proper guidelines for human subject research in light of what happened at Tuskegee.
On May 16, 1997, then-President Bill Clinton offered a formal apology to the study participants and rightfully called the program racist.
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