A grandiose experiment at Tuskeji University for forty years resulted in shock. And the point is not at all in high-profile scientific discoveries - there were none at all. The Tuskeji experiment has written one of the most shameful pages in the history of the United States of America.
Bad blood
In 1932, an experiment began in Macon County, Alabama, officially known as the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in Negroid Men.
In those days, syphilis was considered one of the most terrible diseases.
It affected 35% of the population in the southern "black" states. 399 patients with syphilis and 201 healthy people were involved in the experiment. Most of these African Americans were poor Alabama sharecroppers.
The original goal of the clinical trial was a supposedly noble one - to understand how to treat syphilis among a poor, “colored” population. It meant treatment for "bad blood that brings disease." Participants were carefully concealed that they had syphilis, were not advised on how to avoid the spread of this disease, and were not treated during the entire observation period. They were never told that the "bad blood" was in fact a severe venereal disease. Doctors simply studied the destructive effects of the disease and waited for the death of the test subjects in order to be able to conduct an autopsy.
During the experiment, it was proved that the data obtained are not of the slightest scientific interest. Meanwhile, from the terrible symptoms of the disease. such as paralysis, blindness, heart failure, tumors, psychosis, etc., many test subjects died. Their wives were infected, and children with congenital syphilis appeared.
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In 1972, the experiment was forced to shut down. As unnecessary.
Belated apologies
An experiment began under the auspices of the US Department of Health. Initially, it was stated that sick blacks would be monitored for several months, after which they would provide all the necessary treatment for free.
However, the Great Depression did its job - funding had to be stopped due to lack of funds. The results of what had been done were summed up and the experiment was closed. But only on paper. The doctors themselves decided to continue it: they were very interested in one question - the life expectancy of patients with syphilis in the absence of treatment. Fearing publicity. doctors began to trick the subjects by offering their patients "special free treatment." Such "treatment" included only diagnostic tests. In addition, individual patients underwent multiple (and very painful!) Lumbar puncture - this is how doctors monitored the course of neurosyphilis, i.e. the development of the disease in the brain and nervous system. Of course, she did not bring anything but suffering.
In 1947, syphilis was already actively treated with penicillin. The government was interested in treating patients as soon as possible. Popular campaigns invited citizens to visit treatment centers, and men who were drafted into the army were carefully examined and, if necessary, prescribed treatment. Only the participants in the Tuskeja experiment, for the sake of studying the natural course of syphilis, were carefully "guarded" from receiving medicine that could save their lives. Until the end of their days, they never found out about penicillin …
Everything went "safely" until information was leaked to the press. Peter Buxtun, a venereal disease researcher from San Francisco, accidentally found out about the experiment and reported to higher authorities. The scientist was invited "upstairs" and politely but firmly explained that the experiment would continue until all the subjects had died and an autopsy was possible. However, outraged by the inhuman treatment of the sick, Buxtun turned to the press, and in 1972 several central newspapers at once published articles about the terrible experiences in Tuskeji.
The experiment was quickly curtailed, and all survivors and their families received compensation and free treatment.
Two years later, legislation was amended to regulate medical experiments on humans. But be that as it may, only in 1997, in the presence of five surviving participants in the experiment (a total of only eight people survived!), President Bill Clinton formally apologized for the United States government, calling the experiment inhuman and immoral.
Conspiracy against a national minority
The illegality of an experiment conducted by the US Department of Health to document the natural course of syphilis in black people and to reveal racial differences in its clinical manifestations is beyond doubt. Scientists were rightfully accused of racism. However, the fact that there were several African Americans at the research headquarters made it difficult to investigate the causes of racism. In addition, the experiment was carried out under the auspices of the University of Tuskeji, one of the most respected educational institutions of America by black citizens. For many years, the university clinic received special expensive equipment, and local black doctors actively participated in the research. One of the protagonists of the Tuskeji tragedy was a black nurse named Eunice Rivers. She worked with test subjects for almost forty years,and most of them trusted her. In her defense, she stated that she was only following the orders of doctors and was not responsible for treating the disease.
It's strange. Black doctors and nurses were sincerely convinced that they were helping to solve the problem of sexually transmitted diseases among the African American population with this monstrous experiment! They were confident that health programs would benefit the poorest people in Macon County. Have they not seen that people are not being given any help, that the end justifies barbaric means? It's hard to believe.
In general, when the medical conspiracy was uncovered, many questions arose. Among them is not the last one - why did you even need to observe the "differences" in the course of the disease in representatives of the black and white races? The questions posed at the beginning of the experiment cause deep bewilderment: for example, do blacks suffer from cardiovascular diseases as a result of advanced syphilis, are whites really more susceptible to neurological complications, etc. All this does not fit well with medical science.
The experimental technique also does not fit into any framework: one could still understand if some drugs were tested in humans, but monitoring the development of the disease in the absence of treatment does not at all meet the goals of medicine! It seems that the idea of racial physiological differences has blinded scientists so much that they deliberately sacrificed humanity.
This study went down in the history of medicine not only as the longest, but also as the most useless experiment with tragic consequences. It became a testament to the possibility of exploitation of persons not only of the black race, but also of any other population, potentially vulnerable in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, age or social status.
Sociological research in the Americas in the years that followed revealed a huge lack of confidence among blacks in the public health system.
The Tuskejee experiment demonstrated the open hostility of the authorities and their scientists towards the African American population. It is considered one of the dirtiest and most hideous conspiracies in US history.
Max Galitsky. Secrets of the XX century magazine