A’Tiya Maddox
Mrs. Barnes
DRE 098-13
3/16/15

Tuskegee

In “The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment” written by Borgna Brunner, the issue of the U.S government’s 40 year experiment on black men with syphilis is discussed. The author proposes the events that took place during this experiment. The experiment took place between 1932 and 1972. In the experiment 399 black sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama were chosen. Due to their lack of proper knowledge and the ability to read, the men did not know the seriousness of their disease. The study of the experiment was meant to discover how syphilis affected blacks opposed to whites. They did not have any white men in this experiment, so how could they obtain accurate data? The black men were promised proper health care and instead of being given what they were promised, the black men were given pink aspirin opposed to the medication to treat syphilis. It seemed like a racial issue at the beginning, until it was discovered that black doctors were apart of the experiment as well. The nurses that were involved in the experiment were unaware of what was going on, they just followed the doctor’s orders. When the nurses found out the truth of the experiment 40 years later, a black nurse, Eunice Rivers did not show any remorse nor did she feel like she had done anything wrong. A man named Fred Gray leaked the experiment to the media. During this time there was so much controversy over this experiment that President Clinton had apologized to everyone about what tragedy took place. Truthfully, this experiment was an act of foul play and devastation by the government and its allies. The PHS reported that nothing was learned from the experiment and that the data used will not prevent nor find a cure for syphilis. I am very upset that they basically did this experiment for nothing but were simply taking black men with syphilis as a joke. Why conduct a dangerous