"Tuskegee Experiment" Versus "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment"
Tuskegee Airman
Officer, Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. (TAI)
For many years, there has been a strong misconception fueled by
rampant misinformation that the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, the first
African-American military aviators of WWII, were infected with
syphilis during the so-called "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment."
Please be aware that the "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" was NOT
connected with the Tuskegee Airmen.
The "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" was conducted on 399 men in
Tuskegee, AL from 1932 to 1972, a period of 40 years by the U.S.
Public Health Service (see below)
The "Tuskegee Experiment," which was later called the "Tuskegee
Experience," was the period of training of the black pilots at both
Moton Field and Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee AL (1941-1945) and
continued at Lockbourne Field, Columbus, OH (1945-1949) by the U.S.
War Department.
The training of navigators, bombadiers, gunners, mechanics and other
support personnel took place at more than a dozen other locations in
the U.S. during the 1941-1945 timeframe.
Like I said the two incidents in American history were TWO SEPARATE,
NOT CONNECTED incidents...the Tuskegee Airmen were never infected with
syphilis!!!!
See Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. Website at: www.tuskegeeairmen.org (click on
"History") for more information about the Tuskegee Airmen.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
by Borgna Brunner
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.
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."
Using Human Beings as Laboratory Animals
The true nature of the experiment had to be kept from the subjects to
ensure their cooperation. The sharecroppers' grossly disadvantaged lot
in life made them easy to manipulate. Pleased at the prospect of free
medical care --almost none of them had ever seen a doctor before-- these
unsophisticated and trusting men became the pawns in what James Jones,
author of the excellent history on the subject, Bad Blood, identified
as "the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical
history."
The study was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks as
opposed to whites --the theory being that whites experienced more
neurological complications from syphilis, whereas blacks were more
susceptible to cardiovascular damage. How this knowledge would have
changed clinical treatment of syphilis is uncertain.
Although the PHS touted the study as one of great scientific merit,
from the outset its actual benefits were hazy. It took almost forty
years before someone involved in the study took a hard and honest look
at the end results, reporting that "nothing learned will prevent,
find, or cure a single case of infectious syphilis or bring us closer
to our basic mission of controlling venereal disease in the United
States."
When the experiment was brought to the attention of the media in 1972,
news anchor Harry Reasoner described it as an experiment that "used
human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of
how long it takes syphilis to kill someone."
A Heavy Price in the Name of Bad Science
By the end of the experiment, 28 of the men had died directly of
syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives
had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with
congenital syphilis. How had these men been induced to endure a fatal
disease in the name of science?
To persuade the community to support the experiment, one of the
original doctors admitted it "was necessary to carry on this study
under the guise of a demonstration and provide treatment." At first,
the men were prescribed the syphilis remedies of the day --bismuth,
neoarsphenamine, and mercury-- but in such small amounts that only 3
percent showed any improvement.
These token doses of medicine were good public relations and did not
interfere with the true aims of the study. Eventually, all syphilis
treatment was replaced with "pink medicine" --aspirin.
To ensure that the men would show up for a painful and potentially
dangerous spinal tap, the PHS doctors misled them with a letter full
of promotional hype: "Last Chance for Special Free Treatment." The
fact that autopsies would eventually be required was also concealed.
As a doctor explained, "If the colored population becomes aware that
accepting free hospital care means a post-mortem, every darky will
leave Macon County..." Even the Surgeon General of the United States
participated in enticing the men to remain in the experiment, sending
them certificates of appreciation after 25 years in the study
Following Doctors' Orders
It takes little imagination to ascribe racist attitudes to the white
government officials who ran the experiment, but what can one make of
the numerous African Americans who collaborated with them? The
experiment's name comes from the Tuskegee Institute, the black
university founded by Booker T. Washington. Its affiliated hospital
lent the PHS its medical facilities for the study, and other
predominantly black institutions as well as local black doctors also
participated. A black nurse, Eunice Rivers, was a central figure in
the experiment for most of its forty years.
The promise of recognition by a prestigious government agency may have
obscured the troubling aspects of the study for some. A Tuskegee
doctor, for example, praised "the educational advantages offered our
interns and nurses as well as the added standing it will give the
hospital." Nurse Rivers explained her role as one of passive
obedience: "we were taught that we never diagnosed, we never
prescribed; we followed the doctor's instructions!
It is clear that the men in the experiment trusted her and that she
sincerely cared about their well-being, but her unquestioning
submission to authority eclipsed her moral judgment. Even after the
experiment was exposed to public scrutiny, she genuinely felt nothing
ethical had been amiss.
One of the most chilling aspects of the experiment was how zealously
the PHS kept these men from receiving treatment. When several
nationwide campaigns to eradicate venereal disease came to Macon
County, the men were prevented from participating. Even when
penicillin --the first real cure for syphilis-- was discovered in the
1940s, the Tuskegee men were deliberately denied the medication.
During World War II, 250 of the men registered for the draft and were
consequently ordered to get treatment for syphilis, only to have the
PHS exempt them. Pleased at their success, the PHS representative
announced: "So far, we are keeping the known positive patients from
getting treatment." The experiment continued in spite of the Henderson
Act (1943), a public health law requiring testing and treatment for
venereal disease, and in spite of the World Health Organization's
Declaration of Helsinki (1964), which specified that "informed
consent" was needed for experiments involving human beings.
Blowing the Whistle
The story finally broke in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972, in an
article by Jean Heller of the Associated Press. Her source was Peter
Buxtun, a former PHS venereal disease interviewer and one of the few
whistle blowers over the years. The PHS, however, remained
unrepentant, claiming the men had been "volunteers" and "were always
happy to see the doctors," and an Alabama state health officer who had
been involved claimed "somebody is trying to make a mountain out of a
molehill."
Under the glare of publicity, the government ended their experiment,
and for the first time provided the men with effective medical
treatment for syphilis. Fred Gray, a lawyer who had previously
defended Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, filed a class action suit
that provided a $10 million out-of-court settlement for the men and
their families. Gray, however, named only whites and white
organizations as defendants in the suit, portraying Tuskegee as a
black and white case when it was in fact more complex than that --black
doctors and institutions had been involved from beginning to end.
The PHS did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the
appalling experiments performed by Nazi doctors on their Jewish
victims during World War II. Yet in addition to the medical and racist
parallels, the PHS offered the same morally bankrupt defense offered
at the Nuremberg trials: they claimed they were just carrying out
orders, mere cogs in the wheel of the PHS bureaucracy, exempt from
personal responsibility.
The study's other justification --for the greater good of science-- is
equally spurious. Scientific protocol had been shoddy from the start.
Since the men had in fact received some medication for syphilis in the
beginning of the study, however inadequate, it thereby corrupted the
outcome of a study of "untreated syphilis."
The Legacy of Tuskegee
In 1990, a survey found that 10 percent of African Americans believed
that the U.S. government created AIDS as a plot to exterminate blacks,
and another 20 percent could not rule out the possibility that this
might be true. As preposterous and paranoid as this may sound, at one
time the Tuskegee experiment must have seemed equally farfetched.
Who could imagine the government, all the way up to the Surgeon
General of the United States, deliberately allowing a group of its
citizens to die from a terrible disease for the sake of an ill-
conceived experiment? In light of this and many other shameful
episodes in our history, African Americans' widespread mistrust of the
government and white society in general should not be a surprise to
anyone.
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Prisoner at War
> Greetings...I'm Ron Brewington, Former National Public Relations
> Officer, Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. (TAI)
>
> For many years, there has been a strong misconception fueled by
> rampant misinformation that the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, the first
> African-American military aviators of WWII, were infected with
> syphilis during the so-called "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment."
>
> Please be aware that the "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" was NOT
> connected with the Tuskegee Airmen.
>
> The "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" was conducted on 399 men in
> Tuskegee, AL from 1932 to 1972, a period of 40 years by the U.S.
> Public Health Service (see below)
>
> The "Tuskegee Experiment," which was later called the "Tuskegee
> Experience," was the period of training of the black pilots at both
> Moton Field and Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee AL (1941-1945) and
> continued at Lockbourne Field, Columbus, OH (1945-1949) by the U.S.
> War Department.
>
> The training of navigators, bombadiers, gunners, mechanics and other
> support personnel took place at more than a dozen other locations in
> the U.S. during the 1941-1945 timeframe.
>
> Like I said the two incidents in American history were TWO SEPARATE,
> NOT CONNECTED incidents...the Tuskegee Airmen were never infected with
> syphilis!!!!
>
> "History") for more information about the Tuskegee Airmen.
>
Thanks for the reminder. I'd forgotten they were separate incidents!
a425couple
> Greetings...I'm Ron Brewington, Former National Public Relations
> Officer, Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. (TAI)
>
> Please be aware that the "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" was NOT
> connected with the Tuskegee Airmen.
>
> "History") for more information about the Tuskegee Airmen.
I thank you for your post, and service.
Were you one of those in the original WWII unit?
Regardless, thanks.
Related, I finally got around yesterday to ordering
a mini-slug of books.
I'm regularly surprised at the low cost of books
available via the on line order places.
(Many for pennies more than the $3.99 shipping!)
On topic here, I got WWII books on
1. 761st Tank Battalion, (by Abdul-Jabar)
2. another on the 761st Tank Battalion (by Cassey?)
3. one on the USS DD Mason
(these 3 emph. "colored"/black servicemen)
Barely on topic
4. "Vietnam The War In The Air" by Rene J. Francillon - Random House
Value Pub (1987) - Hardback - 255 pages
"The complete story of aerial warfare over Southeast Asia from 1945 to
1975
describes all aspects of the war in the air as carried out by the air
forces of France, the United ..." (Hardcover - Sep 27, 1988)
5. "Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu"
By Bernard Fall (a very highly regarded book, obviously mostly about
1954 - but certainly sets the stage with WWII material.)