The CDC Tuskegee experiment

The CDC Tuskegee experiment---Dr Alan Cantwell

The Tuskegee experiments were a 40 year government sponsored medical study begun in 1932 that allowed 399 late stage syphilitic African American men to go untreated, even when safe and effective medical treatments were available in the 1940s. Also affected were 50 wives who were infected by their husbands and 20 children who were given the disease congenitally. When the study became public in 1972 after an expose by Jean Heller of the Associated Press, there was much public outcry with many in the black community saying the study already confirmed their suspicions of a governmental plan for genocide of black Americans. Congress held hearings to investigate the study resulting in passage of the 1974 National Research Act which implemented stricter federal guidelines on research institutions using federal money and mandating institutional review boards to oversee research using human subjects-which are currently being violated on a grand scale.