Race, Medicine, and Society - March 1, 2018

Race, Medicine, and Society - March 1, 2018

Discussion Questions:

• What ideas about race shaped the Tuskegee Syphilis Study? Was the Study racist? If so, why/how? If not, why not?
• Why was the study unethical? What defenses of the study were offered, and how do you evaluate them? Does the historical moment in which it occurred shape how we judge it?
• How should we evaluate the participation of Eunice Rivers, Tuskegee Institute staff, and other African-Americans in this study?

What did you notice while reading the book?

• I noticed the controlled images pointed towards African Americans of the time and how that led to them being targeted for the experimentations. African Americans were thought to have Bad Blood and have neurological complications (hence the spinal taps). African Americans were also thought to be dirty and held “sanitary sins.”

What questions did you leave with?

• Did any African Americans know that the testing was mainly experimental?

Did location matter?

• High number of African Americans that had syphilis (30% ish)
• Rural location
• Small community

Belief that medicine was different for African Americans than it was for Whites

15 years into study (Penicillin available and useful) but wasn’t given to African Americans

• World War 2 had ended, most likely leaving the United States with an excess of massively produced Penicillin that was used in WWII. Penicillin was distributed all over the world after the war; yet African Americans didn’t receive the cure.

Macon County was chosen because it represented a broad swath of African Americans

PHS argued that medical practices were being brought to (rural areas) and African Americans

Experiments let Syphilis persist in the African American population to make observations of the disease in its late stages (questionable ethics)

Contrast to use of lab mice for Penicillin testing

• Mice were used for the testing of Penicillin before it could be used in the human body
• All mice were infected with streptococcus and then half of the population was given Penicillin
• Observations were made and the mice that didn’t receive Penicillin are comparable to the African Americans situation in which they were being experimented on

Why African Americans?
    - large, dense population (more disposable population?=proved by previous cases of Cholera and Smallpox)

• P27 one day census in 1926 that determined that more African Americans got Syphilis than Whites (4 infected out of 1000 people for whites and 7.2 infected out of 1000 people for African Americans)
• Lack of access to medical treatment
• Race mattered during recruitment and experimentation but didn’t matter in methods of treatment (Best treatment worked for both populations)
• Idea that African Americans weren’t fully human/citizens
• African Americans seen as immoral (P27 controlling image)
• African Americans were thought to be the cause of Syphilis
• Not victims, seen as potentially threatening carriers

Medical Field’s anxiety over mixing of races that would eventually make the population
more susceptible to disease and ruin the nation

Answer in 1936, yet experimentation continued for 34 years.

• Ties back into ethics

Physicians involved didn’t believe that they were doing immoral things/experimentations

Don’t forget to start working on your paper! Highly recommend to go see DK before turning it in!