The Tuskegee Study

Beginning in 1932, the United States Public Health Service began a forty year study to document the long term effects of syphilis in African American men. The study ended in 1972, twenty five years after the cure was found through the discovery of penicillin in 1947. None of the men ever received treatment. The government chose Macon county, Georgia as the site for the study as there was a significant number of men there afflicted with the disease. 399 men with syphilis were used in the study along with 201 men without the disease, used as control subjects. Ironically, it was the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) that was the site for the testing. It was established by Booker T. Washington to educate freed black slaves and their descendants. However, it was funded mostly by the government, so it had offered office space as well as space for examinations and autopsies.

The project was actually initiated in 1930, as the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) began the study not only to observe the effects of the disease, but also the effects of treatment. The used six Southern counties with large black populations. However, two years after the study began, funding ran out. So, according to Taliford Clark of the Public Health Service in a report that he had issued, "Macon County is a natural laboratory; a ready-made situation. The rather low intelligence of the Negro population, depressed economic conditions, and the common promiscuous sex relations not only contribute to the spread of syphilis but the prevailing indifference with regard to treatment."

In all other counties the experiment was abandoned as the focus was now purely on Macon county. The USPHS had decided that if they could not afford to treat syphilis, at least they could study it's effects. It was said that in the beginning the government had good intentions, and the study was to only last six months.