Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:Introduction to Health Care and Public Health in the U.S.
Unit:Public Health - Part 1
Lecture:The Effect and Value of Public Health
Slide content:A Terrible Injustice - 1932 Public Health Services Tuskegee Study Recorded effects of syphilis on African American men Even after penicillin became the recommended drug treatment in 1947, the men did not receive adequate treatment. In 1972, an advisory panel found the study "ethically unjustified and it was immediately halted 6
Slide notes:The record of public health does have two sad and serious stains on it, which are its involvement as a partner in two syphilis studies which veered into unethical behavior. These first of these is the infamous Tuskegee Study which began in 1932 and concluded in 1972. What started as an experiment to study the effects of syphilis on African American men, became unethical when a new treatment, penicillin, was deliberately withheld from subjects after it became the recommended treatment in 1947. The study was not halted until 1972, after an advisory panel found it to be ethically unjustified.