Tuskegee redux: evolution of legal mandates for human experimentation

J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2012 Nov;23(4 Suppl):104-25. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2012.0174.

Abstract

Human health experiments systematically expose people to conditions beyond the boundaries of medical evidence. Such experiments have included legal-medical collaboration, exemplified in the U.S. by the Public Health Service (PHS) Syphilis Study (Tuskegee). That medical experiment was legal, conforming to segregationist protocols and specific legislative authorization which excluded a selected group of African Americans from any medical protection from syphilis. Subsequent corrective action outlawed unethical medical experiments but did not address other forms of collaboration, including PHS submission to laws which may have placed African American women at increased risk from AIDS and breast cancer. Today, anti-lobbying law makes it a felony for PHS workers to openly challenge legally anointed suspension of medical evidence. African Americans and other vulnerable populations may thereby face excess risks-not only from cancer, but also from motor vehicle crashes, firearm assault, end stage renal disease, and other problems-with PHS workers as silent partners.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Alabama
  • Black or African American / statistics & numerical data
  • Contact Tracing
  • Female
  • HIV Infections / ethnology
  • HIV Infections / mortality
  • Human Experimentation / ethics
  • Human Experimentation / legislation & jurisprudence*
  • Humans
  • Mammography / statistics & numerical data
  • Medicare
  • Middle Aged
  • Syphilis / ethnology
  • United States
  • United States Public Health Service / legislation & jurisprudence*
  • White People / statistics & numerical data
  • Young Adult