top of page
Writer's pictureReginald Spann

Analysis | 52nd anniversary: Remembering the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments at 52 July 25: Why Black Christians Refuse COVID and Other Vaccines


Black men lining up for public healthcare in an undated, uncredited photo
Black men lining up for public healthcare in an undated, uncredited photo

"Surely, he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence … A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee." (Psalm 91:3-7)


In 1932 the United States Public Health Service partnered with Tuskegee Institute and launched one of the world's very most heinous malpractice schemes ever, if not the absolute worst by far.


According to the National Library of Medicine in 1991 it was the "longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings" in the history of medicine and public health.


The distrust and discontent of the public medicine system is still thick in the African American community although some of that has deteriorated judging by the number of Blacks proudly promoting their vaccination status on social media and other platforms.


The Tuskegee travesty may be forgiven by families of the victims and communities at large but its history must never be forgotten so that it is not repeated.


What was the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” is now known as the “USPHS Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee" and was conducted en masse under cruel medical lies in Macon County, Alabama.


The devil who is the author of chaos, confusion and lies would be boastful about the abominable experiment performed on God's children.


Created to clandestinely observe the effects of untreated syphilis, the now infamous study left hundreds of Black men without treatment for the disease until a whistleblower exposed the sickening truth to an Associated Press reporter named Jean Heller in 1972.


“Of about 600 Alabama black men who originally took part in the study, 200 or so were allowed to suffer the disease and its side effects without treatment, even after penicillin was discovered as a cure for syphilis,” the AP reported in breaking the story.


Penicillin was readily available by 1943 as an effective treatment for syphilis but it was not offered to the subjects. The subjects were never told that they had contracted syphilis.


“[U.S. Public Health Service officials] contend that survivors of the experiment are now too old to treat for syphilis, but add that PHS doctors are giving the men thorough physical examinations every two years and are treating them for whatever other ailments and diseases they have developed,” the landmark report continued.


Physicians targeted Tuskegee because it was reported to have the nation's highest syphilis rate back then.


The villainous experimentation at first lured 600 poverty-stricken Black men: 399 who had contracted syphilis and 201 who had not. The men studied were sons and grandsons of former slaves and the chicanery was initiated during an era in which the KKK dominated the South.


Alabama was fully segregated, the civil rights movement was nowhere to be seen, the Deep South was filled with "out of town by sundown" cities and poor Blacks were extremely vulnerable to carpetbagging public health officials.


The Church was visible in most communities but they could not know the extent of evil being perpetrated by seemingly benevolent healthcare workers: much like what happened in New York City with eugenicist Margaret Thatcher and Planned Parenthood preceding Tuskegee.


Without collecting informed consent, researchers in Alabama fabricated a story claiming that the men were being treated for “bad blood:” a term once used in the Deep South to describe medical maladies including syphilis, anemia and fatigue.


The men were promised free medical exams, food and burial insurance.


In October 1972 after facing public rage, an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel appointed by the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs found that the study was “ethically unjustified."


The study was finally stopped one month later after Merlin K. Duval, the Assistant Secretary for Health, sent a memorandum announcing the study's end to David J. Spencer the Centers for Disease Control's director.


Former slave Booker T. Washington began building Tuskegee Institute brick by brick in 1881 while using a room for the fledgling school donated by Butler Chapel AME Zion Church. 


George Washington Carver started teaching at Tuskegee in 1896, thereby together helping to elevate its status throughout the world. 


Washington died in Tuskegee on November 14, 1915 at 59-years-old, some 57 years before the AP's bombshell report shook up the world. Such journalism is rare these days.


The Christian Commander strives to uphold those standards.


When the news broke, seven men studied had died of syphilis and more than 150 of heart failure. It is not clear whether or not the latter victims died due to the effects of syphilis. Some 70 subjects were still living.


The US health officials who initiated the study had already retired and faced no legal actions.


The men involved in the ghastly study filed a lawsuit and were awarded a $10 million judgment in 1974.


On May 16, 1997 former President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House issued an formal apolgy to eight of the sole survivors: Carter Howard, Frederick Moss, Charlie Pollard, Herman Shaw, Fred Simmons, Sam Doner, Ernest Hendon and George Key.


All of them were upwards of 85 years of age and only the first five names mentioned above were present for the apology.


“You did nothing wrong, but you were grievously wronged,” he said. “I apologize and I am sorry that this apology has been so long in coming.”


"The people who ran the study at Tuskegee diminished the stature of man by abandoning the most basic ethical precepts. They forgot their pledge to heal and repair."


Clinton also announced that the federal government was establishing a $200,000 grant t for bioethics in research and health care at Tuskegee University as a "memorial."


Shaw, 94, thanked HIM "for doing your best to right this wrong tragedy and to resolve that Americans should never again allow such an event to occur."


______


0 comments

Comentarios

Obtuvo 0 de 5 estrellas.
Aún no hay calificaciones

Agrega una calificación
bottom of page