The Tuskegee Syphilis Study has become a central example of unethical studies conducted on the basis of minority exploitation. The study affirmed the racist ideologies of the time, as white folks actively sought to biologically assert a racial hierarchy in which they were superior to African Americans. Many people, even to this day, are unaware of the true intent and motive behind the tragedies that were inflicted upon the African American community in this study. The dissembling nature of this racial hierarchy in medicine as disclosed by the Tuskegee Syphilis study continues to hold an impact on the African American population in the United States. Since the beginning of American history, there have been many reasons for African Americans to be distrustful of the American government, the leading account being slavery- but we do not often consider the root of the distrust that has manifested within the black population against the American healthcare system.
In 1932, the Public Health Service initiated a study to record the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks in collaboration with the Tuskegee Institute. The Tuskegee Institute was founded by Booker T. Washington as the first institute to promote higher education for African Americans. The study was contrived of nearly 600 black men - 399 of whom were syphilitic while the remaining 201 did not have the disease and served as control subjects. The men were coerced into believing they were receiving treatment for “bad blood” by the researches. “Bad blood” was a term used to describe several afflictions that may have included syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. The reality of the study was that these men “were deliberately denied effective treatment for syphilis in order to document the natural history of the disease” (Gamble, 1). In 1952, nearly the midst of the study- penicillin became more widely available to the public and was the leading method of treatment at the time. Unfortunately, the men involved in the study did not receive such therapy. The denial of proper treatment provides an insight into the the centuries of systematic oppression and distrust that has been instilled within the African American community in regards to medicine and healthcare.
The public claim to uncover the “history” behind the disease contributes to a broader issue. Why is it that the responsibility of uncovering the “history” of syphilis is essentially placed on the backs of black men, when the disease affected all races? These African American men were categorically exploited by the medical community to further their own agendas as they sought to establish white superiority over blacks. In Jenny Reardon and Kim TallBear’s “Your DNA is Our History”: Genomics, Anthropology, and the Construction of Whiteness as Property, they uncover how nineteenth century white American anthropologists circumscribed Indigenous peoples into their own histories, “claiming knowledge about the artifacts of these cultures as their rightful inheritance to property”. There is a clear correlation between this attempt to gain access to Native American DNA and the exploitation of Black men’s bodies in the Tuskegee Syphilis study, and that is all rooted in the “connections between whiteness and property” (Reardon and TallBear). There are a series of racial theories and ideologies that essentially positioned whites in America as catalyzing agents that were intermediates in transforming others’ natural history into their own idea of “productive property”(Reardon and TallBear). This idea of productive property ties directly into the popular notion of sacrificing something for the “greater good”. But what renders white people the ability to decide what is for the good of an entire community that they have no real authority over, especially when it overlaps with these individuals’ personal health?
Racism in medicine dates backs to the arrival of Darwinism in its evolutionary synthesis stage. The theories that Charles Darwin left behind allowed for a new justification for a racial hierarchy in America. According to the large majority of the scientific thought circle of the time, people who were not of European decent , specifically those of African descent, were not as evolutionarily equipped to survive in a “complex, white civilization” (Brandt, 21). This idea was widely supported by the medical and social scientist community to the extent that the basis for the physical and mental deterioration of Black people was blamed on their inability to adapt in a post-slavery America. Medical professionals claimed that African Americans were more susceptible to diseases such as syphilis because of the horde of minor defects and irregularities that were present in their physical bodies. Moreover, blacks were also viewed as inherently officious in their sexuality and related this back to an exhaustive lack of morality . A physician at the time wrote: "The negro springs from a southern race, and as such his sexual appetite is strong; all of his environments stimulate this appetite, and as a general rule his emotional type of religion certainly does not decrease it” (Brandt, 21). Predating slavery in America whites asserted their dominance over blacks, and years after they continued to seek out different ways to concretely assure this to the public.
Many African Americans, even in today’s society, do not feel comfortable ensuing full trust over their bodies and physical health to medical professionals. The Tuskegee syphilis study is only one example of a in time which their bodies were not viewed as their own personal property. During slavery, African Americans were literally the property of white people, being sold and treated as exactly that. The exploitation of black men in the Tuskegee Syphilis study simply reverberated that they were still deemed as objects at the disposal of white people, as their bodies and their biological nature were still subject to being confiscated by the whites. The Tuskegee syphilis study was not the only instance of black bodies being exploited in a post-slavery America. During the Jim Crow era, African Americans feared that their bodies essentially did not belong to them both in life or death. Black bodies were dug up from form their graves and living black people feared being kidnapped and murdered for the purpose of scientific research by “witch doctors”. There is a long history of black bodies and minds being encumbered to push the white man’s agenda, and the Tuskegee Syphilis study revealed more about the study of racism than that of a disease. The issue that society will continue to face is that of institutionalized racism that affects the livelihood and health of numerous minority groups, and it is an issue we must actively seek to break down whether its be inflicted upon African Americans, Immigrants, or Muslims.
Works Cited
Brandt, Allan M. “Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.” The Hastings Center Report, vol. 8, no. 6, Dec. 1978, p. 21., doi:10.2307/3561468.
Gamble, V N. “Under the Shadow of Tuskegee: African Americans and Health Care.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 87, no. 11, Nov. 1997, pp. 1773–1778., doi:10.2105/ajph.87.11.1773.
Reardon, Jenny, and Kim Tallbear. “‘Your DNA Is Our History.’” Current Anthropology, vol. 53, no. S5, Apr. 2012, doi:10.1086/662629.
Comments