Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment Research Paper

During the 1900s America violated loads of rules with African Americans with the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in such ways that you could not even imagine. "The U.S. Public Health Service discontinued a successful program to document and treat syphilis in rural African American populations" (Reverby). According to this citation the purpose of the experiments was to document and treat syphilis among African Americans. However later on in the trials when penicillin became the drug of choice to treat diseases such as syphilis, they were not given the option to be able to use it and still had to go through the rigorous experiments. "Even when penicillin became the drug of choice for syphilis in 1947, researchers did not offer it to the subjects"(Tuskegee Timeline). …show more content…
"The study involved 600 black men - 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease"(The Tuskegee Timeline). In order to get the patients to sign up, they told them that they had bad blood that they needed to come in to make sure they stay alive. "Researchers told the men they were being treated for "bad blood," a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue"(The Tuskegee Timeline). Most of the men that were in the experiment were poor and illiterate sharecroppers. The study was conducted in a ferocious manner, the patients were put through "treatment" that were almost as bad as the ones the Nazi's did to the Jews. "The men never knew of the deliberating and life threatening consequences of the treatments they were to receive"(About the USPHS Syphilis