Page 9 - Biased Science

drugs offered “more potential harm for the patient than poten-
tial benefi t.” Nor did researchers aim to fi nd a wonder drug that
3
would provide a cure. Rather, researchers were simply interested
in tracking the course of the disease in those it affl icted. There
was no expectation that the men who had syphilis would recover.
But that was not what the men recruited for the study were
told. Instead, the PHS promised prospective volunteers that they
would receive appropriate treatment for what ailed them. Recruit-
ment fl yers explained that all volunteer subjects would be given a
physical examination. “After [the examination] is fi nished,” the fl yer
continued, “you will be given a special
treatment if it’s believed that you are in
a condition to stand it.” The fl yer ended “They just kept saying I had
with a veiled threat, printed in all capi- the bad blood. They never
tal letters: “REMEMBER THIS IS YOUR mentioned syphilis to me, not
LAST CHANCE FOR SPECIAL FREE even once.” 5
TREATMENT.” 4
Moreover, evidence strongly sug- — Tuskegee experiment test subject
gests that the men were not told that Charles Pollard
the study was about syphilis. Charles
Pollard, one study participant, told lat-
er interviewers that he had been recruited because he had what
researchers called “bad blood”—a catch-all term within the lo-
cal Black community for ailments both serious and benign. “They
just kept saying I had the bad blood,” Pollard reported years later.
“They never mentioned syphilis to me, not even once.” And while
5
some study leaders disputed Pollard’s recollections, other doctors
involved in the research backed his account.

Tuskegee and Medical Ethics

From a perspective of medical ethics, the Tuskegee study was
severely fl awed. Principles of medical ethics state that studies
should only be performed on people who have given informed
consent—that is, people who know what the study is about and
what their role in it will be. The Tuskegee syphilis study failed

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