Examining Tuskegee Part 3

Collin Winters

Part 3 of Examining Tuskegee by Susan M. Reverby takes into account the legacy of the Tuskegee Study and how views on medicine changed after the news had been leaked. The story of the Study brought about a representation of failure of researchers to consider informed consent. Bioethics became a new topic of discussion, and various organizations were made to regulate research studies. A new anxiety began to form in the US. Are physicians trustworthy? What might they do to patients for research purposes?

On a rhetorical level, Tuskegee was equivalent to something of America's Nuremberg. Many physicians and lay people rejected this because Nazis were viewed in such a negative way. How could America (view of America ties in with American Exceptionalism) commit an atrocity to that of which the Nazis did? (Tuskegee Experimental Study, Executive Order 9066) Research was becoming more defined with the difference of Therapeutic Research (helping a patient) and Nontherapeutic Research (might help a population but harms a patient). The Tuskegee Study caused Americans to rethink their view on the medical community and the methods used to perform research. Informed consent was becoming more and more important in studies.

Upon the media coverage of the Study; the Tuskegee study joined the "holy trinity' of American horror stories of research. Cancer cells had been injected into aging patients at the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital in Brooklyn in 1964-1965. Live hepatitis virus was given orally to children with retardation at the state-run Willowbrook Hospital on Staten Island in New York in 1963-1966 (Reverby 190). These studies became major medical scandals of the time. A compendium was made by students that included the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital and the Willowbrook cases; however they completely missed "Tuskegee" as a problem (Reverby 190).

An apology was made at the White House during the presidency of Bill Clinton. (I've hit the word limit so I'm going to generally state) that the White House coverage mainly focused on emotionalism and Clinton's southern political skills (Reverby 226)

Works Cited

Reverby, Susan M. The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy: Examining Tuskegee. The University of 
     North Carolina Press, 2009.