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how untreated syphilis affected the physical health of these men. A host of problematic
aspects occurred with this study, not the least of which involved the ethical
dimensions. 35 The men who served as research subjects 36 were deceived. When the
researchers from the U.S.P.H.S. approached these men in the early 1930s, the
investigators indicated that they were offering treatments for “Bad Blood,” a medical
term used in the past to indicate a vague diagnosis referring to a number of illnesses.
In the communications from the Macon County Health Department to patients, they
promised “special free treatment” and stressed that the follow-up visits would be their
“last chance” for a “good examination.” 37 But this was not the case. These men were
merely being monitored at best, and no such treatment was given for syphilis.
Treatments for syphilis were available in the 1930s and, even more importantly,
penicillin was widely available to treat this disease and other infections in the early
35
For a broad overview of the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro
Male” and
the details about the ethical concerns of the study, see, for example, Allan Brandt,
“Racism and
Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment,” in Tuskegee’s Truths:
Rethinking the
Tuskegee Syphilis Study, ed. Susan M. Reverby (University of North Carolina Press,
2000), 15-
33; James H Jones, Bad Blood (Simon & Schuster, 1993); Thomas Parran, Shadow on
the Land
(Waverly, 1939); Susan M. Reverby, ed., Tuskegee’s Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee
Syphilis
Study (University of North Carolina Press, 2000); and Harriet A. Washington, Medical
Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from
Colonial
Times to the Present (New York: Doubleday, 2006).
36
The use of the term “research subjects” is purposeful here. It is currently correct to
use the term “research participants” and not “research subjects.” However, to suggest
that the men used in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study were “research participants” suggests
that they had informed consent, and that was not the case. They were used as “human
guinea pigs” and were deceived throughout the entire duration of the study.
37
For the original Tuskegee Syphilis Study Recruitment Letter from Macon County’s
Health Department and an analysis, see Gwen Sharp, “Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Recruitment Letter,” https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/08/22/tuskegeesyphilis-study-recruitment-letter/,
Accessed on October 13, 2019.