❝on the dead homies.❞
a book comprised of black excellence and the defiance of blackness throughout history. pages telling the truth of unspoken and ignored issues of the black community while covering every inch of black history and the future of...
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In 1932, the Public Health Service came to the Tuskegee Institute and began to "study the history of syphilis" to find a treatment. It began with 399 infected black men and 201 clean black men, 600 altogether. The infected men were told they would be treated for their bad blood in order to get rid of some of the symptoms. The 600 men received free meals, insurance, and free medical exams for the duration of the project which would last 6 months, while the study lasted 40 whole years.
The infected men were told that they had "bad blood," which is the most vague thing a supposed doctor could ever say. They were never told about syphilis and they were denied medicine (penicillin) by the researchers and were instead given placebos. The men with "bad blood" were only given aspirin and tonic as a "treatment" for having bad blood. No one knew what having had blood meant, and the treatment for syphilis was largely known to be penicillin by 1945. The doctors never told them they were dying, never gave them accurate medical attention, and had 4 whole decades to tell the men they were infected.
Despite what was promised, the researchers offered zero help as men died, went blind, went mentally insane, and picked up other health issues from the lack of treatment.
In 1972, the study gave its last days when a journalist (Jean Heller) published the story of the experiment which showed 28 black men died from syphilis, 100 more died from lack of proper medical attention, 40 of the mens' spouses were infected causing 19 deaths of infected children.
In 1973, the U.S. Government gave the surviving men and widowed spouses a settlement of 10 million dollars along with stricter guidelines for human studies in the U.S.
The researchers faced zero punishment although the APA ethical codes were released in 1953, meaning they had all of the knowledge to follow these guidelines yet because the subjects were black no one would care about the ethics used. They took advantage of lower class black men, targeted their health, and neglected them enough to kill them without a second look from the government or the CDC.
Today, court settlements are still going out to the descendants and ethical laws (for psychology) are getting more restricting for researchers in the hopes that this never happens again. Hopefully, but doubtedly, America gains some sense of conscience and works with lower income, inner-city areas for more effective healthcare instead of making those people vulnerable to diseases.
