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Behind the Scenes of the Tuskegee Experiment
It Was Even More Racist Than You Think
Many Americans have some knowledge of the Tuskegee Study, conducted in Macon County, Alabama, from 1932 to 1972. During the study, doctors and clinicians observed and tested Black men with syphilis who were unaware they had the disease and of the availability of penicillin, a known cure as early as 1938. What I’d never seen discussed was the rationale for the observation and failure to treat, in particular, the discussions about why the study should be done in the first place.
The United States Public Health Service (USPHS) initiated the initial study using 400 syphilitic Black males and 200 uninfected men as controls. The first report from the study was released in 1936, with updates released approximately every four years. If any of the diseased men sought to get treatment, they were discouraged by the USPHS. As late as 1969, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) approved the continuation of the study. Only in 1972, when the media got hold of the reports, was the study shut down by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Later in 1972, HEW issued a report finding the study “ethically unjustified” and said the sick men should have been given penicillin.
The rationale for the study was centered on Darwinism. In his “scientific study” of human evolution, The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin demonstrated his belief in the superiority of Caucasians.
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” — Charles Darwin
Darwinists had a lot to say about the “Negro race,” according to a review by Allan Brandt
“Essentially primitive peoples, it was argued, could not be assimilated into a complex, white civilization. Scientists speculated that in the struggle for survival, the Negro in America was doomed. Particularly prone to disease, vice, and crime, black Americans could not be helped by education or philanthropy. Social Darwinists analyzed census data to predict the virtual extinction of the Negro in the twentieth century, for they believed the Negro race in America was in the throes of a degenerative evolutionary process.
