Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The Tuskegee syphilis study was a clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in poor, rural black men. For forty years, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. It was one of the longest “nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history”. The subjects (participants) were mostly illiterate blacks. These men were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all.

There were several issues why this study was ethically problematic. The first ethical issue was; there was no informed consent. Participants were not told about all the aspects of the research which might have reasonably influence their decision to participate in the study. The second major ethical issue was the withholding of treatment for research purposes. The designers used a misleading advertisement. The researchers advertised for participants with the slogan; "Last Chance for Special Free Treatment". The subjects were not given a treatment, instead being recruited for a very risky spinal tap-diagnostic. Another ethical issue was that; the state of Alabama had passed a law in 1927 that required the reporting and treatment of several venereal diseases, including syphilis, by medical personnel. The USPHS ignored the state law, choosing to disregard the impact of untreated syphilis on wives of the married men who were subjects.

According to Reverby “the Tuskegee syphilis study is surrounded by illuminating misconceptions” which cannot be carelessly dismissed because of the important insight they provide into the significance of the study. One of those myths he mentioned in his article is that, “the men were deliberately inflected with syphilis”.