The Tuskegee Study is widely regarded as one of the largest medical blemishes in the history of the United States. It had the power to positively impact the thinking of the nation's physicians, while on the other side, negatively affect some of the country's already most infected citizens. The overall description of what the study included can best be summarized through its incredible process and planning, as well as the study's consequences both directly after and even today. Medical studies carried out today would never have the same guidelines that the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did, however it was a much different time back then. It was a time when American physicians were able to take advantage of diseased African American citizens from the poorest state in the US. .
The study was carried out in Macon County, Alabama, a heavily populated African American area. Initially, before the study was created, the country sent doctors to Alabama to treat the mass amounts of people infected with syphilis. After effectively treating just over 1/10 of their intended patients, the government's funds towards this operation ran out. This left thousands of citizens without treatment and they were left to battle with the deadly disease on their own. The Tuskegee Study was created shortly after this. Taliaferro Clark, a member of the U.S. Public Health Service, devised a research plan to take advantage of the overwhelming number of infected syphilis patients. He proposed a study which would follow African American men with untreated syphilis for roughly six to nine months. The Public Health Service intended to promise the men involved in the study free treatment for their syphilis, courtesy of the government. At the time, it was rumored that syphilis' effects were different in the African American male than the Caucasian male. This rumor ultimately drove Clark and his medical team to seek the approval they required from government officials.
