How Lives Were Ruined at Tuskegee

• By LYNDA RICHARDSON  April 21, 1997

   

  In 1932 the U.S. Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male." The stated intent was to justify treatment programs for blacks.

  The study, in Macon County, Ala., involved 600 poor black men, 399 with syphilis and 201 who did not have the communicable disease. In exchange for their participation, they received free meals, free medical exams and burial insurance. The men were told only that they had "bad blood" and would receive treatment.

  The 399 men with syphilis were never told they had the disease, were not offered penicillin after it became the standard treatment for syphilis 15 years after the experiment began, and were not given a chance to quit the study, a federal advisory panel concluded.

  Even as the men went blind and insane, the federal government withheld treatment, observing the men to the end point, their autopsies. Originally projected to last six months, the study went on for 40 years. As soon as it was publicized in 1972, it was halted.

  News accounts of the experiment led to anger, congressional hearings and legislation. Government agencies changed their research practices on human subjects. Review boards were established to decide whether studies meet ethical standards. The federal government has paid more than $9 million in an out-of-court settlement with victims, their families and heirs.

  Eight of the participants are still alive.