I read the April 1988 issue of the Journal with interest, finding it informative and useful.
Perhaps a bit discouraging to many of your readers, however, was a bit of evidence of our continued inability to confront our racist past. I have reference to the article by Cutler and Arnold,1 in which no mention is made of the infamous “Tuskegee Study.” That was the “scientifically controlled experiment,” from 1932 to 1972, in which hundreds of Black patients from Macon County, Alabama, with syphilis, were carefully observed, but untreated. The object of the experiment was to determine the effect of untreated syphilis on human subjects. The Public Health Service officers as well as the local and state health officials who participated in this noxious “experiment,” whose subjects neither knew nor consented to their experimental role, suffered no pangs of conscience. One of the overseers of the project when asked about it said, “There was nothing in the experiment that was unethical or unscientific.”2 However, when the information did appear a few years ago, the topic became a cause célèbre and a book about the matter2 had wide circulation.
I call attention to the topic at this time without rancor. After all, the behavior of the PHS officers was no more than representative of the sentiments and prejudices of the time. But not to remember is to forget, and to forget is a disservice to those who suffered the indignities. It seems to me, therefore, that in calling upon us to honor one of the participants, we should also mention the context in which the meritorious service was earned.
George A. Silver is an emeritus professor of public health, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, at Yale University.
Originally published in the American Journal of Public Health 78 (1988): 1500. Reprinted by permission of the American Public Health Association.
1. Cutler JH, Arnold RC: Venereal disease control by health departments in the past: Lessons for the present. Am J. Public Health 1988; 78:372–376.
2. Jones JH: Bad Blood. New York: The Free Press, 1981: 8.