Tuskegee syphilis experiment

The **Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment** (/tʌsˈkiːɡiː/) was a clinical study. The study was done between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service. Its goal was to study how syphilis progressed (got worse) if it was not treated. The study's subjects (the people who were being studied) were poor African American sharecroppers. They were told that they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government. Syphilis gets worse over time. It can be very painful. If it is not treated, it causes brain damage and death. In the 1930s, there was no cure for syphilis. The treatments that were used did not work well and some were poisonous. Doctors did not understand syphilis. Because of this they did not have any way to help people with the disease. The Tuskegee study group decided to study how syphilis affected African Americans.  They reasoned that they could not cure or treat people with syphilis anyway, and that they would learn things that would help doctors understand syphilis better.

## The experiment
### Beginnings
The Public Health Service started working on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in 1932 during the Great Depression.  Tuskegee University, a college in Alabama that was open to African-American students, also helped with the study. They helped because they thought the study would improve public health for poor people in the area.

For the study, researchers signed up a total of 600 African American men from Macon County, Alabama. A total of 399 of these men had syphilis before the study began. The remaining 201 did not have syphilis.  (In research, this healthy group is called a "control group"). Researchers wanted to compare the difference between people with and without syphilis. The men were given free health care, meals, and free burial insurance for being in the study.

The researchers' original goal was to study the effects of syphilis for just six months. However, in 1929, the Stock Market Crash happened. The Great Depression also began. The Rosenwald Fund said they could no longer pay for medicine to treat the Tuskegee men.
### The study continues without treatment
After funding (money) for treatment was lost, the study was continued.  The study's subjects were never told that they would never get treatment.  In fact, the men were told they were being treated for "bad blood."  "Bad blood" was a local word that people used to describe different diseases, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. But the Tuskegee study's researchers tried to keep these men from getting treatment.  A Public Health Service worker was quoted at the time saying: "So far, we are keeping the known positive patients [the men with syphilis] from getting treatment." This caused the study to end, on November 16, 1972. By that time, all of the Tuskegee men with syphilis had gotten no real treatment for 40 years.

By the end of the study in 1972, only 74 of the test subjects were alive. Of the original 399 men, 28 had died of syphilis. Another 100 were dead of related complications. A total of 40 of their wives had been infected and 19 of their children were born with congenital syphilis.

## Related pages 
* Syphilis
* Medical ethics
* Penicillin

## References