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The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007 by Harriet A. Washington; New York, Doubleday, 2007, 512 pages, $27.95 Joshua Miller, Ph.D. Most readers of Psychiatric Services are familiar with the notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where 399 African American men with syphilis were studied by the United States Public Health Service to observe the course of the disease. Treatment for study participants was not only withheld but actively suppressed by the experimental team. The study began in the 1930s and continued until the early 1970s, when Peter Buxton, a young Polish immigrant who worked as a venereal disease interviewer for the Public Health Service, publicly blew the whistle after he was unable to prevail upon the Public Health Service to stop the experiment. As shocking as that incident was, Harriet Washington amply documents how it was but one of many medical abuses committed against African Americans throughout United States history and probably was not the worst. In fact, Washington describes a multifaceted pattern of racist and unethical medical practice, largely unknown to most people in the United States—particularly those who have not experienced racial oppression—with devastating consequences for the well-being of millions of African-American citizens. This practice led to a health "chasm" between blacks and whites and eroded the trust of many African Americans in the medical system to this day. Full Article : psychiatryonline.org |
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