Tuskegee syphilis experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was from 1932 to 1972 in the area of Tuskegee, Alabama by the United States Public Health Service, an agency of the Ministry of Health of the United States carried out. In this study the effects of untreated syphilis infections, a frequent chronicity of the venereal disease, were studied in humans. 399 infected with syphilis African American Sharecropper - a kind of tenant farmers - were examined in the study. 200 other people who were infected non- syphilis than were included as a control group in the studies. The subjects were for the most part poor and could neither read nor write.

This study is known for their inhuman conduct: The purpose of the study was to observe the natural history of syphilis disease. The study was not canceled, available as an effective syphilis drugs were. The subjects had no opportunity to make an informed consent. They were not even informed of a syphilis diagnosis. They were told instead that they were " bad blood " had ( engl. bad blood ), and that they would get free treatment. They might also free trips to the clinic, a hot meal every day and get $ 50 for the funeral in case of death.

From the study learned in the fall of 1965 randomly who also works at the end of PHS epidemiologist Peter Buxtun. Buxtun tried to reach the setting of the experiment in the PHS, but was there as well as in 1966 not achieve anything in the U.S. Disease Control. Everywhere was assured that the project would continue until the death of the last patient. Just three years later he was told by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control authority that you have no moral qualms. He dedicated in 1972, the journalist Jean Heller, which published a report on 25 July 1972 at the " Washington Evening Star ," in which they called attention to the study. At the time were still 74 people who had taken part in the beginning of the study. Public come under pressure, the PHS called an inquiry committee, which decided the termination of the study after three months. The attorney Fred Gray, who had already represented Martin Luther King in court, finally reaching a compensation of nine million dollars for the survivors of the trial court.

In another study in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 prisoners, soldiers and mental patients were infected with syphilis. It should in this case be investigated whether penicillin can cure syphilis. It was not until 2010, the U.S. government apologized for these experiments.