Deception and Racism in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Abstract

During the twentieth century (1932-1972), white physicians representing the United States government conducted a human experiment known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study on black syphilis patients in Macon County, Alabama. The creators of the study, who supported the idea of black inferiority and the concept that black people’s bodies functioned differently from white people’s, observed the effects of a disease called syphilis on untreated black patients in order to collect data for further research on syphilis. Black individuals involved with the study believed that they were receiving treatment, although in truth, treatments for syphilis were purposely held back from them. Not only this, but fluids from their bodies, such as blood and spinal fluid, were extracted to serve as research material without their awareness of the purpose of the collection. The physicians justified their approach by positioning it as mere observation, asserting that they were not actively intervening with the patients participating in the experiment. However, despite their claims of passivity, these white physicians engaged in various morally improper actions, including deceit, which ultimately resulted in the deaths of numerous black patients who might have had a chance at survival.