Page 11 - Biased Science

No one knows how long the study might have continued. But
in 1972 reporter Jean Heller published a story about the study.
Heller’s account was met with shock and horror. For decades a
government health agency—an agency dedicated to promoting
health—had lied to these Black men about their medical condition
and denied them treatments known to be effective in fi ghting their
disease. Though study organizers initially tried to downplay the
immorality of the experiment, most observers remained aghast.
Journalist Harry Reasoner wondered how the PHS could be “only
mildly uncomfortable” with using “human beings as laboratory ani-
mals in a long and ineffi cient study of how long it takes syphilis to
kill someone.” 7
The Tuskegee study ended soon after Heller’s account ap-
peared. But the effects lingered. The federal government put to-
gether a panel of experts to review the study; unsurprisingly, the
panel concluded that the research was “ethically unjustifi ed.” A
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lawyer sued the government on behalf of the men in the study and
their families, eventually settling for more than $10 million. In 1997
then-president Bill Clinton apologized to the few surviving research
subjects and to the families of all who had participated. “We can
stop turning our heads away,” Clinton said. “We can look at you in
the eye and fi nally say on behalf of the American people, what the
United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry.” 9

Henrietta Lacks

The Tuskegee research project is unfortunately far from the only
example of an unethical medical study. Another example is the
case of Henrietta Lacks. Born in Virginia in 1920, Lacks was Af-
rican American and poor. One of ten children, she was raised
mainly by her grandfather and attended school through only the
sixth or seventh grade. After she was married, she moved to Bal-
timore, Maryland. According to friends and relatives, Lacks en-
joyed cooking, adored her fi ve children, and loved to dance. As
one of her cousins put it, “We’d just get out there [on the dance
fl oor] and shake and turn around and all like that.” 10

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