by Anai Rhoads

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In 1932, a forty-year study was launched by the Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama, to examine cases of the bacterium Treponema palladium (syphilis) among a group of carefully selected African-American males.

In total, 600 patients were selected, 399 were infected with syphilis and 201 were not. All of the men in the study were poor, uneducated, and were desperate to receive the hot meals the Public Health Service provided in exchange for the treatments. Ironically, they were also offered burial insurance.

None were told they were to be used as human guinea pigs, or told they were in fact not being treated. Half of the male subjects suffered mental dysfunction, varied neurological complications (neurosyphilis), blindness and ultimately death from the expirement without ever being given penicillin to spare their lives.

When asked why they had to receive several "back shots" (spinal taps), researchers repeatedly lied to the men, claiming the shots were "therapeutic" when in fact the spinal taps gave insight to infection from the spinal canal into the brain.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a major newspaper was published in 1936 where the study was broadly criticised. Local doctors stepped in to assist the men who were suffering, but were asked not to interfere. The researchers decided to follow the subjects' progressive infection until the men were overcome with the infection.

In the 1940s the mould Penicillium notatum's reputation of being a stable germ-killer was established. By 1947, the U.S. Public Health Service established "Rapid Treatment Centres" to treat syphilis, but the men in the study were not treated. The Centres were instrumental in the decline of syphilis cases.

The federal government settled out of court with the families and the 120 surviving victims in 1974, two years after the cover-up was exposed by a whistle-blower, Jean Heller in July 1972. The settlement included funding for the wives and any offspring that contracted congenital syphilis during delivery.

Infected pregnant women have a 40 percent chance of having a syphilitic stillbirth or losing their newborn suddenly after birth. Babies born to a mother with either untreated syphilis or syphilis treated after the 34th week of pregnancy have a 40 to 70 percent chance of being infected with congenital syphilis.

Newborns suffered as a direct result of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Families were unaware of the cause of the illness and deaths until years later. The babies who manage to survive, had serious health problems including anaemia, runny noses, skin sores, white patches in the mouth, inflamed arm and leg bones, a swollen liver, jaundice, and some were born with unusually small heads. Sadly, a 10-day treatment with Bicillin, (penicillin - G benzathine), would have cured the infants.

President Bill Clinton apologised to the surviving victims, Sam Doner, Ernest Hendon, Carter Howard, George Key, Frederick Moss, Charlie W. Pollard, Herman Shaw, and Fred Simmons on 16 May 1997 for the reckless experiments performed on them.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one of several cited examples of research in which experiments on humans led to federal regulations restricting humans from further research without written consent by the subject. In 1974, the National Research Act was signed into law, creating the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research.

Further Reading:

Pesare, P. J., Bauer, T. J., and Gleeson, G. A.: Untreated syphilis in the male Negro. Observation of abnormalities over 16 years. Am. J. Syph, Gon, & Ven. Dis., 34: 201-213 (1950).

Benedek T. G. "The 'Tuskegee Study of Syphilis: Analysis of Moral Versus Methodologic Aspects." Journal of Chronic Diseases. 1978 Jan 31(1): 35-50.

Brandt, Allan. "Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study," in Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health, ed. Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985: 331-343.

Cave, V. G. "Proper Uses and Abuses of the Health Care Delivery System for Minorities with Special Reference to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study." J Natl Med Assoc. 1975 Jan 67(1): 82-4.

Cobb, W. M. "The Tuskegee Syphilis Study." J Natl Med Assoc. 1973 Jul 65(4): 345-8.

Curran, W. J. "The Tuskegee Syphilis Study." N Engl J Med. 1973 Oct 4 289(14): 730-1.

Heller, J. R., Jr., and Bruyere, P. T.: Untreated syphilis in the male Negro. II. Mortality during 12 years of observation. J. Ven. Dis. Inform. 27: 34-38 (1946).

Gamble, Vanessa. "Under the Shadow of Tuskegee: African Americans and Health Care." American Journal of Public Health. 1997 Nov 87(11): 1773-1778.

Jones, James H. Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. New York: Free Press, 1981.

Reverby, Susan M., ed. Tuskegee Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

United States Commission on Civil Rights. Alabama Advisory Committee. The Tuskegee Study; A Report of the Alabama Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Washington, DC, 1973.

Deibert, A. V., Bruyere, M. C.: Untreated syphilis in the male Negro. III. Evidence of cardiovascular abnormalities and other forms of morbidity. J. Ven. Dis. Inform. 27: 301-314 (l946).

Vonderlehr, R. A., Clark, T., Wenger, 0. C., Heller, J. R., Jr.: Untreated syphilis in the male Negro. A comparative study of treated and untreated cases. Ven. Dis. Inform. 17: 260-265 (1936).

Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel. Final report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel. Washington, DC : U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, 1974.

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