Examining Tuskegee Part II Response

            At the conclusion of Part I, we find the monetary compensations that the victims of this study received based on their position within the study. Part II primarily focuses on the information and data that could (or mostly could not) be retrieved post-study, and how those who partook in leading and helping with the research would feel about it even after it was publically scrutinized. World War I would be one of the events that made physicians and researchers interested in studying venereal diseases (ex. Joseph Earle Moore). Later, the post World War II era would begin the Rabid Treatment Centers to control diseases and treat mass amounts of people who were infected.

            In response to the obvious lack of data and information that is retrievable for the people affected by this study, I think Herman Shaw is a good example (122). It may be known that he had been infected with syphilis, and he made it to the Rapid Treatment Center in Birmingham, but was abruptly sent back. However, it is not known why he was sent back; perhaps it was due to his latent stage, or maybe it was because of his position as a part of research that lead the nurse to cease his opportunity for treatment, but we do not know. Along with other lost information, women and children who suffered from the residual affects of the disease are unknown for the most part, and rare evidence of any treatment for wives and children. Based on my reading of the “Women and Children” section, I assume several were actually directly impacted by the maltreatment of their male partners, being that there were cases shown (by the CDC) of several women testing positive and a heightened amount birth deaths and miscarriages (129-131).

            A lot of what I question about African American and Tuskegee Institute’s involvement in this study is answered by something unsurprising and simple: the need for white monetary support. Black physicians involved in the research were bounded by the restrictions of the need for “white philanthropy”. Even those as prominent as Eugene Dibble struggled against the “humiliation” of race inferiority (153-54). The portrayal of Rivers as both the caregiver and the partaker in studying bodies infected with a disease that could be cured confuses me. Is she a victim of doing her job under white power or is she someone who should have done more?