Examining Tuskegee Part III

Part III of Examining Tuskegee delves into the aftermath of the study and its perception in the decades following. Concerns of the way we view research ethics following the awareness of the Study was changed. Particularly, there were numerous links of this atrocious events with others that occurred within the same time realm--for example, the Nuremberg Trials and the Tuskegee experiment began to be linked.(193). Bioethics was called into question as the Study's "use and abuse" came to be routinely applied to a myriad of other events as the details faded away and the vague metaphor remained."(193). The Study set a precedence and turned into an example of the level of ethics needed. 

The media outbreak in the decades following the experiment served to preserve the memory and created a reminder that this occurred without apology.  Rumors began to circulate that the "government had directly infected the men with syphilis"; this rumor spread to the news, internet, papers, and medical professionals as well as the general public.(201). Plays and films displayed the wide variety of opinion on what truly occurred during the Study.  Davis Feldshuh's HBO film entitled Miss Evers' Boys captured the ethical dilemmas of the study surrounding Nurse Eunice Rivers and her part in the Study as public perception of her involvement varied in terms of ethics.  Controversy ensued following the film.  The truth of the Study or the possibility thereof some of the events depicted, created animosity within many viewers, especially white ones. Public outrage surrounded the display of white health professionals as monsters. Moral outrage served as a spectacle that pushed for the need of apology on behalf of the government. Chapter 12 delves into the public spectacle that was the the apology issued from the President, Bill Clinton, at Tuskegee University with five survivors present. Clinton's language and rhetoric made it clear that "the apology was not just form the PHS or the government. It was from the American people."(225). Susan Reverby wraps up the book with possibly the most important line following the knowledge, acceptance, and apology for the Study: "The apology for the Study mattered because it acknowleged the pain and renewed the necessity for a discussion of the history. The meaning made of the history, however, would never be uniform, and the Study's availability to be imagined continued."(226). 

Following this reading, I am left with numerous questions: Why was there a lack of apologies from the doctors and health professionals themselves? Why did it take so long, practically thirty years after the Study had finished, to receive a public apology? Given what we know about the racial and political climate from past readings and discussions, do you think that if something like this had occurred in the late 80's or early 90's, would we issue an apology today or turn a blind eye?