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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. What's Up? Everyone? Welcome to This Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class, where we bring you a new tidbit from

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Speaker 1: history every day. Today is augusteen. The day was August

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Dr Merlin K. Duval, Assistant Secretary of

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Speaker 1: the U. S Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, announced

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Speaker 1: that there would be an investigation into the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

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Speaker 1: The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Mail,

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Speaker 1: as it was called, began in nineteen thirty two. The U.

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Speaker 1: S Public Health Service had joined with the Tuskegee Institute,

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Speaker 1: a historically black school in Alabama, to study the natural

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Speaker 1: history of syphilis. At the time, philists and other sexually

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Speaker 1: transmitted infections were a major issue in the US. Large

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Speaker 1: scale efforts to fight s t I s had been

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Speaker 1: underway since World War One, during which s t I

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Speaker 1: S were a common cause for disability and absence from

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Speaker 1: duty in the army, but many people living in poverty

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Speaker 1: in rural areas still did not have access to treatment.

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Speaker 1: When they did have access to medicine, they were often

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Speaker 1: not able to afford it. The Public Health Service and

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Speaker 1: the Julius Rosenwald Fund of Philanthropic Foundation collaborated in treating

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Speaker 1: people with syphilis in the South in the late nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenties and early nineteen thirties, but the Great Depression hit

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen thirty two, the Fund pulled out of

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Speaker 1: the treatment program, which had expanded to five states. The

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Speaker 1: Public Health Service did not have the resources to continue

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Speaker 1: the program on its own, so instead of focusing on treatment,

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Speaker 1: the PHS decided to switch directions and study the effects

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Speaker 1: of untreated syphilis on living people. Black people were widely

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Speaker 1: affected by syphilis, and researchers were studying racial differences in

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Speaker 1: the effects of the s t I. The PHS turned

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Speaker 1: to the Tuskegee Institute, known for its service in black communities,

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Speaker 1: for help in launching its new study. In exchange, the

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Speaker 1: PHS paid Tuskegee, trained its interns, and employed its nurses.

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Speaker 1: The PHS also worked with black community leaders to encourage

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Speaker 1: participation in the study. Many people were willing to participate

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Speaker 1: since they had no access to medical care otherwise. On

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Speaker 1: top of that, participants got food and transportation, and family

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Speaker 1: members got burial stipends. In the beginning, six hundred black

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Speaker 1: men were signed up for the study, three hundred and

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Speaker 1: ninety nine with syphilis and two hundred and one who

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Speaker 1: did not have syphilis, but the participants were not told

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Speaker 1: that they had syphilis. Instead, they were told that they

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Speaker 1: had bad blood, a catch all colloquialism that was used

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Speaker 1: to describe several illnesses. The study was supposed to last

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Speaker 1: six months. Study participants were monitored, but they were only

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Speaker 1: given placebos like aspirin. That was even the case after

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Speaker 1: the PHS began to give people with syphilis penicillin as

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Speaker 1: treatment in nineteen forty three, and after penicillin became the

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Speaker 1: recommended treatment for syphilis in nineteen forty seven, the researchers

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Speaker 1: wanted to track the full progression of syphilis, so they

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Speaker 1: gave participants no effective care. Syphilis left untreated for many

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Speaker 1: years can spread to the brain or i and cause paralysis, dementia, blindness,

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Speaker 1: and even death. Still, once local health departments began working

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Speaker 1: with the PHS to track people who had left Macon County, Alabama,

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Speaker 1: they too kept study participants from receiving treatment. But in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, PHS employee Peter Buxton was an STI

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Speaker 1: interviewer and investigator and He found out about the Tuskegee

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Speaker 1: study and raised concerns about its ethics, but the Centers

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Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention, which controlled the study, determined

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Speaker 1: that the study needed to continue with the support of

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Speaker 1: the American Medical Association and the National Medical Association. Officials

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Speaker 1: wanted to see the study through until participants died and

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Speaker 1: they analyzed all the data they collected, so Buxton leaked

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Speaker 1: the story, and in July of nineteen seventy two, Associated

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Speaker 1: Press reporter Jean Heller broke the story. The next month,

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Speaker 1: it was announced that an ad hoc panel would investigate

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Speaker 1: the study. The panel recommended ending the Tuskegee experiment immediately,

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Speaker 1: and on November sixteen, Merlin Duval, Assistant Secretary of Health

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Speaker 1: in the U s Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,

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Speaker 1: issued an administrative order shutting it down. By then, twenty

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Speaker 1: eight participants died from syphilis, a hundred others died from

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Speaker 1: syphilis related complications. Forty spouses of participants had also been

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Speaker 1: diagnosed with syphilis, and the infection had been passed to

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Speaker 1: nineteen children of the participants. In nineteen seventy three, Senator

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Speaker 1: Edward Kennedy held Congressional subcommittee meetings that resulted in new

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Speaker 1: guidelines for working with human subjects and US government funded studies.

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Speaker 1: That same year, a class action lawsuit was filed on

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Speaker 1: behalf of the participants in their families. A ten million

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Speaker 1: dollar out of court settlement was reached. In nineteen seventy four,

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Speaker 1: the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program was created, and it began

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Speaker 1: providing lifetime medical benefits and burial services to living participants,

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Speaker 1: two spouses of the living and deceased participants, and to

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Speaker 1: their children. The last study participant died in two thousand four.

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Speaker 1: The unethical experiment ignited a deep distrust in public health

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Speaker 1: institutions among Black Americans. I'm Eaves, Jeff Coote, and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you know a little more about history today than you

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Speaker 1: did yesterday. Keep up with us on Twitter, Instagram, and

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Speaker 1: Facebook at t D I h C podcast. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: joining me on this trip through time. See you here

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Speaker 1: in the exact same spot tomorrow. For more podcasts from

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