Tuskegee Syphilis Study

• Year(s) Conducted: 1932 to 1972
• Nation Involved: The United States of America

Possibly the worst thing we ever did to our own people outside of slavery & war has to be the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. For this study, which began in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service began working with the Tuskegee Institute. They wanted to try to find a way to curb the effects of Syphilis. Yet they also wanted to track the progression of the disease to better understand it too. To do this, they went to Macon County, Alabama, and decided to pick 600 poor, illiterate, black male sharecroppers. 399 of them had previously contracted syphilis. However, they did not know they had it.

The government doctors did not tell them they had it either. However, they did promise them free healthcare, meals, and even burial insurance if they participated in their study. Being poor, this was life-changing for them. Even when we found that Penicillin could cure the illness, the government did not alert them of their syphilis diagnosis. In fact, they followed these men (even as many were dying), up to 1972 before the study was ended. Due to the lack of knowledge, many of the men’s wives caught the disease and their children were often born with congenital syphilis. It even led to a rise in the disease nationwide!