Page 8 - Biased Science

CHAPTER ONE

The Tuskegee

Experiment

and Henrietta

Lacks

In 1932 a government agency called the US Public Health
Service (PHS) organized a medical study involving syphilis, a
sexually transmitted disease that can kill those who have it.
The study centered on the small Alabama town of Tuskegee
and was carried out at a clinic on the campus of a Black col-
lege called the Tuskegee Institute. The PHS recruited 600 men
from the area to take part in the study. Of these men, 399 had
syphilis. All were African American; virtually all were poor and
uneducated. Study participants were offered medical care,

rides to and from the clinic, meals on days when they were be-
ing given examinations, and burial stipends to be paid to their
survivors should any of the participants die during the study.
Everyone involved in planning the study knew that the re-
search was not about curing the men who had the disease. At
the time, there were no truly effective treatments for syphilis.
The only available protocols involved poisonous substances
such as arsenic and mercury. These treatments were painful
and led to unpleasant side effects. As one expert put it, the

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