Page 10 - Biased Science

This photo from the 1950s shows men who
were included in the Tuskegee, Alabama, syphilis
study. From a perspective of medical ethics, the
Tuskegee study was egregiously unethical.

to provide enough information to subjects to ensure that they
could make an informed decision about whether to participate.
Moreover, by not identifying syphilis as the focus of the study,
the researchers helped spread the disease through the commu-
nity. Study participants did not know that they could infect their
wives—and their unborn children, since syphilis can be transmit-
ted to a fetus if the mother has the disease—and so dozens of
women and children became syphilitic as well.
Matters grew considerably worse in the early 1940s, when
penicillin, an antibiotic, was used to treat syphilis for the fi rst time.
It soon became evident that penicillin cured the disease and car-
ried few negative side effects. But those in charge of the Tuskeg-
ee study decided not to dose the men in their care with penicillin.
Instead, the study continued as before, with doctors recording
the inevitable health declines of the subjects who had syphilis.
“I hope that the availability of antibiotics has not interfered too
much with this project,” commented Raymond Vonderlehr, one
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of the study’s directors, in 1952—making the goal of the experi-
ment clear.

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