User:Isabellakyle
The Tuskegee Experiment.[edit]
The Tuskegee syphilis study was an event in Macon county where men of color were targeted for an unknown research study. Government doctors were telling men of color that they would be being given free health care and were to be cared for "bad blood". [Bad blood was known as various aliments in the body at the time.] The men weren't really being treated for bad blood, instead they were being used as basically as "lab rats" in research for untreated syphilis. Black men were specifically targeted in Macon county because during the time period they were poor and uneducated, meaning there was a chance that the men of color wouldn't catch onto what was really happening. About 600 men estimated were apart of the research, 399 men had latent syphilis and 201 men were just a control group who were free of disease. The experiment began in 1932 and lasted all the way until 1972, making it a long lasting 40 years of syphilis research. By 1974 after many court dates, a 10 million dollar settlement was reached, the U.S. government promised to give medical benefits that would last surviving participants for the rest of their lives, free burial services were also given. Because of this the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program was created and by 1975 wives, widows, and offspring of the men involved in the study were added to the beneficial program.
Works Cited: www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/16/youve-got-bad-blood-the-horror-of-the-tuskegee-syphilis-experiment/?utm_term=.f12a5193390e.
www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study