MEDICAL RACISM

How The Tuskegee Experiments Still Impact Trust For Medical Industry

Once trust is broken in a community, it may remain elusive

While all doctors take the Hippocratic oath and pledge to “do no harm,” the systemic mistreatment of Black patients throughout American history reveals this as a broken promise. From J. Marion Sims, the so-called “Father of Gynecology,” who experimented on enslaved Black women without anesthesia, the forced sterilization of Black women that occurred so frequently, it earned the nickname — a Mississippi appendectomy, to unethical studies performed on Black men what became known as the Tuskegee Experiments, White doctors in America have engaged in behavior that has ultimately damaged the relationship between Black people and the medical industry.

You see, stories of scientific racism need to be told for the same reason you teach a new driver to read all of the signs, slow down when you see yellow, and stop when the light turns red. The first step in mitigating any social problem is to raise awareness about potential dangers. Newer generations may not be aware that this country has a legacy of medical racism, which calls into question the legitimacy of the care they offer and provide, at least in the eyes of Black Americans. How can you, on one hand, pledge to “do no harm” and, on the other, treat Black patients differently? One study suggested that nearly half of medical students endorsed some disturbing myths about Black people, such as their skin being tougher or them being less sensitive to pain, which ultimately impacts the quality of care they provide to Black patients. Not only do studies of this nature show that anti-black racism is a pervaisive problem in American society, but they also show why Black people report higher levels of distrust for medical professionals when compared to White people.

Perhaps the most influential historical example of medical racism is the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. There is a common misconception that researchers injected Black men with syphilis during this experiment, and the dust got knocked off that myth when the first COVID-19 was approved for use in adults. Anti-vaxxers wanted people to feel terrified that the federal government would cause further harm to the black community. But, the irony wasn’t lost on the black scientific community that such lies only endangered Black lives, leaving many susceptible to developing the illness, which was disproportionately harming Black people at the time. That is why it’s so important for the public to know what really happened.

The Tuskegee Study is a story of neglect.

The actual story of the Tuskegee Study is one of neglect because researchers intentionally deprived Black men of a viable treatment for syphilis. From 1932 to 1972, for forty years, researchers tracked the disease development in Black men’s bodies, using them as literal guinea pigs for their morbid curiosity. The participants consisted of 600 Black men from Macon County, Alabama, 399 of whom had syphilis, while the remaining were used as a control group. Left untreated, syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease, can cause severe and long-lasting health problems, including “neuralgic (brain and nerve) problems, eye problems, and even blindness,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers did not seek informed consent by notifying the participants of the risk of their involvement in the study, which is why modern-day scientists consider this a textbook case of unethical research. The Black men who participated received free medical checkups, meals, and burial insurance from researchers.

The Black men victimized by the Tuskegee Experiments were receiving free medical care. Still, it was all a farce since the doctors knew these men had syphilis and did not provide them with penicillin, which many doctors were prescribing at the time to treat the disease. Not only did these researchers cause harm to the Black men whose health degenerated over the years, but they also allowed the sexually transmitted disease to spread throughout the black community. The wives, girlfriends, and other sexual partners of these men had no idea that they were exposing themselves to a dangerous disease. Instead of medical professionals educating the black community about the prevalence of the disease, informing them of ways to protect themselves, and providing access to a known treatment, they intentionally allowed syphilis to run amok, telling these men they were being treated for “bad blood.” Ask not why Black Americans have distrust for medical professionals, and instead, ask why doctors have mistreated them so frequently.

Perhaps the Tuskegee Experiments continue to impact the black community’s trust in the medical industry because of how heinous these actions were. Misusing the trust of Black men in Alabama, researchers gathered data for decades without ever showing care or consideration for the health and well-being of their patients. To make matters worse, substantial evidence demonstrates that doctors knew how to treat spills and understood the harmful impact of the disease when allowed to spread. In The Library of Congress, various advertisements from the 1930s showed warnings about the progression and spread of syphilis. “Now curable,” one said, while another warned the disease could cause “heart trouble, blindness, deafness, mental disorders,” encouraging those reading the post to “have your blood tested.” These researchers, fully knowing the harm this disease would cause to Black men, allowed the disease to ravage their bodies. Before the Tuskegee Experiments, doctors knew what syphilis did to the human body. So, this was cruel and unusual punishment, not a true scientific inquiry.

Given the harm the medical industry has and continues to cause to Black people, widespread distrust is a reasonable phenomenon, although it is a double-edged sword. Many are hesitant to report symptoms to doctors with the assumption they do not care and do not have their best interests in mind, and as a result, miss the opportunity to receive quality preventative care. On the flip side, even if Black people put their complete trust and faith in the medical industry, unchecked racism and bias can diminish the quality of care they receive. That is why it’s not good enough for medical professionals to claim they learned from the past and would not perform such an experiment in the present day because this case of systemic racism tainted the well. The priority should be implementing policies designed to mitigate and, whenever possible, eliminate racial inequities in the medical industry and engaging in a dialogue with the black community to understand their concerns better. To one day live up to the pledge to “do no harm.”

🌹Learn more about the author here.