The Tuskegee Syphilis Study ran between the years 1932 – 1972: a total of forty years. African American males were highly encouraged to participate in the study as they were told that they had ‘bad blood’ and would receive aspirin as medication. These men were not aware that they had contracted syphilis, and would continue to engage in sexual activity with their wives or other women if not married. As a result, these women contracted syphilis, as did some babies born from such mothers. These men were also encouraged to allow their bodies to undergo an autopsy when they passed.
In return, the Public Health Services (PHS) would pay for these men’s burial costs. These selected men agreed to this as burial costs were often very expensive, yet never signed a consent form. In 1943 it became known that penicillin could treat and cure syphilis during its early stages.’ Those leading the study did not treat their patients but continued examining the progression of syphilis. When the study ended in 1972 due to a whistleblower, the study took on a different life. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study remains prominent in the American culture today, forty years after the study was uncovered. The American public and popular culture would go on to utilize Tuskegee in plays, movies, television shows, and music, continually alternating the story of Tuskegee.
In 1972, Peter Buxtun spoke to a reporter, Edith Lederer, about the happenings in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, leaking the news about this unreported story. Tuskegee and its history with the PHS were about to enter into every American household. On July 26th, Lederer published the article through the AP wire and captivated the attention of Americans with this.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton offered an apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. President Clinton spoke about ending the silence that surrounds such events as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. He could not undo the actions of those before him, but he could offer his apology: “What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry”.
” President Clinton spoke about racial injustices as the center of the problem for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Some scholars, as noted by Reverby, believed that Clinton should have focused on the “medical ethics and abuse of power” present that allowed for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study to occur.” He ignored all the factors that led to the occurrence of the study for forty years, even when a cure was known for thirty of those years. President Clinton’s addressing of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study allowed the history of the event to re-enter the American culture.
The continuance of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in popular culture keeps the historical event present and alive within the U.S. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study memory deserves acknowledgement as it is “too powerful to be ignored”.”” Tuskegee references continue to rise, even internationally. In Uganda, studies were being done on the local women to find a cure for HIV. These studies, that tested if a short course treatment plan would stop newborns from being born with HIV, were funded by the National Institutes of Health and the CDC, or U.S. government money.
Some of these women did not all receive treatment, as some received the short course and others merely thought they were undergoing treatment.” Furthermore, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study needs to be revisited as a result of the historical memory of the event being altered depending on the source. In Miss Evers’ Boys, Eunice Rivers’ portrayal does not speak to her complexity, making her memory purely positive instead of a contradiction. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study remains as one of the worst human experiments conducted within U.S. soil.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study continues to speak to the institutionalize racism present in the U.S. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study utilized only African-American males because it was believed that each race reacted differently to syphilis. The story of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study “anchors our beliefs about race, medicine, and science”. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study has not been apologized for on all levels. President Clinton apologized for racism but did not delve into its existence institutionally.
Ignoring the existence of institutionalize racism allows for such racism to thrive. Those not subjected to this type of racism are blind to its impact. They link such discrimination to factors beyond skin color or sex, when these are the issues that underline every interaction. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study raises these questions to the global community. The memory of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study needs to be retold correctly to the American people in order to show its complexity. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study violated the medical rights of African American men in the U.S. and needs to remain in the consciousness of Americans.
