In 1932, the United States Public Health Service began an experiment dealing with the venereal disease, syphilis. The study lasted until 1972 and during those 40 years morals and ethics were stretched to their limit. Tuskegee, Alabama was where the experiment took place and where 399 black men were unknowingly taken advantage for the sake of science.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was conducted on mainly illiterate sharecroppers in the late stages of syphilis. These men were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. They were told they suffered from "bad blood." Also included in the experiment were 201 men that were used as the control group. The purpose of the experiment was to chart the natural course of the disease without treatment. It also was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks as supposed to whites. Some of the known effects of tertiary syphilis include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death (www.infoplease.com).
In July of 1972 a Washington newspaper journalist broke the story and brought the experiment into the public eye. People said the study was like using human beings as laboratory animals. Throughout the course of the experiment 28 men died directly of syphilis, 100 died of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis (www.infoplease.com).
I found the most interesting part in researching the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is most people thought it was a racist study where white doctors purposely endangered black males. It was very interesting to find out many of the doctors and nurses working on the experiment were black as well. .
The lawyer who defended the survivors of the experiment, Fred Gray, also defended Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Gray filed a suit against only the white doctors, nurses, and organizations that were involved in the experiment.