The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (TSE)

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (TSE) was an infamous clinical study that took place between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service. The goal of the study was to observe and document the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural poor African-American men in Alabama. The scientists used free health care as a incentive to participate in this study. The study was in collaboration with Tuskegee University, a historically black college in Alabama. The scientists enrolled a total of 600 poor black sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama. Of these men 399 had previously contracted syphilis before the study began and 201 did not have the disease. For participating the men received free medical care, meals and free burial insurance. Once funding was lost the study continued and the men were not informed that they would never be treated. None of the men infected were ever told they had the disease and none were treated with penicillin even after the antibiotic proved to treat syphilis. The African-American men were used like rats with no regard to them as human beings.
The researchers used the participant’s illiteracy against them. Knowing they did not have the means to question what was being done to them. Where the experiment went awry is that once penicillin was an acceptable means for treating syphilis the men were discouraged from receiving other healthcare except for what was provided by the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Many people in the years that the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment took place were aware of the atrocities being committed due to the clinical data that was being provided but very few cared. Finally, in the 1970s Peter Buxtun became the whistleblower and the story broke in the Washington Star on July 25,