The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

In a White House ceremony on May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton apologized for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the 40-year government study (1932 to 1972) in which 399 Black men from Macon County, Alabama, were deliberately denied effective treatment for syphilis in order to document the natural history of the disease. The continuing shadow cast by the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and efforts to improve the overall health status of Black Americans spurred the push for an apology by the federal government." The legacy of the study at Tuskegee," the president spoke, "has reached far and deep, in ways that hurt our progress and divide our nation. We cannot be one America when a whole segment of our nation has no trust in America." The president's …show more content…
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the founder of the nation's first Black-controlled hospital, Chicago's Provident Hospital, contended that White doctors, especially in the South, frequently used Black patients as guinea pigs. Black medical leaders claimed that only Black physicians possessed the skills required to best treat Black patients and that Black hospitals could provide these patients with the best possible …show more content…
These studies demonstrate racial inequities in access to particular technologies (such as cancer and diabetes research in the new millennium) and raise critical questions about the role of racism in medical decision making on the part of the patient and the provider. An existing national health insurance program, or the creation of smaller, more affordable community health centers simply does not solve the access problems of African Americans. Possible explanations for this lack of access includes, but is not limited to, health problems that precluded the use of procedures, patient unwillingness to accept medical advice or to undergo surgery, and differences in severity of illness. However, the role of racial bias in health care settings cannot be discounted, as the American Medical Association's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs has recognized. In a 1990 report on Black-White disparities in health care, the council

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