About that Tuskegee syphilis study – and about COVID
I’ve seen it over and over – assertions that researchers involved in the Tuskegee study of syphilis, back in middle third of the 20th Century, gave black men syphilis in order to study them. I saw the claim again the other day in an article on COVID and the government and medical establishment, but unfortunately I didn’t take note of where the article was and can’t find it now. However, I do recall that it was by a writer on the right, so this Tuskegee “fact” is hardly limited to dissemination by the left. The “gave black men syphilis” assertion is deeply embedded in the American consciousness at this point and is considered the truth by most people who know little else about the Tuskegee study.
I happen to have written a post on the subject way back in ancient times: 2008. I call your attention to it now. I hope it sets the record straight. The truth about the study was bad enough without lying to make it seem even worse.
The present-day reaction of the government, the politicians, and the health agencies and much (although not all) of the medical establishment to the COVID pandemic has been shocking in its willingness to impose Draconian measures using unknowns or even falsehoods, and in its intense politicization of an issue that should always have been above politics but never was. The corruption, mendacity, and incompetence involved has made it even more likely that people will believe that all the previous horror tales were true. A great deal of mistrust is, alas, justified. But I still think it’s important to try to get the stories straight.
Oh, and while we’re at it, you might want to read my 2007 post on the similar story that the US army purposely gave the native Americans smallpox-infected blankets in order to start an epidemic to help decimate their population.
The “smallpox infected blankets” story was originally an accusation against the British army after the French and Indian War. Except for the Iroquois, most of the tribes had sided with France. It has never been verified as far as I’m aware. I’m not too surprised that it was dusted off to fling at the US Army. There were enough atrocities on all sides in the Indian Wars that it seems sort of unnecessary, however.
AF JAG,
While whites engaged in atrocities, there were far, far more atrocities committed against whites than the reverse. Every warlike tribe routinely committed atrocities.
I call your attention to a relevant passage in the Declaration of Independence “He (King George) has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”….
Men slowly tortured to death. Women gang raped and tortured to death in the most sadistic of ways. Pregnant women’s bellies slashed open and babies ripped from the womb. Babies and toddler’s heads smashed and bellies gutted. Native Americans of that time didn’t just kill their enemies, they did it in the most cruel way possible.
There are the grimmest of reasons why the sentiment that, “the only good indian is a dead indian” arose on the frontier.
For all the abuse heaped upon them, a less merciful civilization would not have tried to educate a conquered enemy’s children but would have simply exterminated such a merciless enemy. Nor would it have over time come to see the evil that is racism. An evil that every tribe and civilization had practiced, not a few of whom still do.
The smallpox infested blankets were an article of faith at Williams College as a way of throwing shade on our arch-rivals at Amherst College.
The common belief about the Tuskegee Study and 4 other occasions when blacks were subjected to unethical medical experiments is the reason why blacks are the least willing to partake of an experimental vaccine.
“5 Unethical Medical Experiments That Used Black People As Guinea Pigs”
https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/12/02/5-unethical-medical-experiments-that-used-black-people-as-guinea-pigs/
GB. The reality of withheld treatment is or would be sufficient to cast doubt on the government’s good intentions. In fact, it is so bad that adding the “gave syphilis” cannot make it worse.
The casual nature of dissing, say, HCQ for nakedly political reasons, with Lancet changing its view just after the election is a piece of the whole thing. People are units with no intrinsic value.
The reality of withheld treatment is or would be sufficient to cast doubt on the government’s good intentions.
Except for the fact that when the study was begun there was no effective treatment for syphilis, which can only be effectively treated with antibiotics. Penicillin was discovered by Fleming in the late 1920s but it wasn’t developed for use until the 1940s, when what was available primarily went to the Army.
Without the racial implications and the fact of misleading subjects, the Tuskeegee Experiment wasn’t that far removed ethically from placebo studies.
As I see it, the primary ethical problem of the Tuskeegee Experiment was lying to the subjects.
It should be pointed out that the original head of the study was a black physician, who resigned over ethical concerns about lying to the subjects, and the longest serving employee of the study was a black public health nurse, who tracked the subjects for decades.
The common belief about the Tuskegee Study and 4 other occasions when blacks were subjected to unethical medical experiments is the reason why blacks are the least willing to partake of an experimental vaccine.
It seems that white folks, often prisoners, have been subject to at least as many unethical experiments. Offhand I can think of Stanley Milgrom’s work, the CIA’s work with LSD, and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Here are five others: https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/5-unethical-medical-experiments-brought-out-of-the-shadows-of-history
If I can postulate a theory, the existence of the Tuskeegee Institute and the Tuskeegee Airman has helped popularize the story of the Tuskeegee Experiment.
Probably were some ethical issues later on in the study when it became clear that Penicillin was da bomb. One often reads of studies being terminated as soon as evidence accrues that treatment is worse than cure. And were there not already moderately better than nothing sulfa-derived drugs? Things had already progressed a bit beyond mercury by the time antibiotics came on the scene — much to the detriment of artistic creativity, I might add.
Which raises a good (err) and typically Zaphodian point: Did any good Jazz come out of the Tuskegee Experiment?
Putting on objective natural justice hat, the placebo treatments were Not Good.
Minor point that the Usual Suspects won’t go near is that if you needed a population with rampant syphilis back when, you had to go to the Blacks. Pace our good hostess, stereotypes exist for a reason. Blacks were notorious for their sexual licentiousness and promiscuity. Still are, for that matter… although the contrast is less stark today.
Random Thought:
Don’t be at the bottom of the Sociopolitical Hierarchy because TPTB *will* do medical experiments on you. And who might be on the bottom today?
🙂
Happy Thoughts, Happy Thoughts.
Johann. I’m aware of the timing. Point is, when the antibiotic was available, it was withheld.
Which brings up the issue. Syphilis is going to kill these guys. That’s not in doubt. There are no Lourdes-like spontaneous remissions. These guys are dead men walking. So why the hell not try this penniwhatsit stuff. What can it hurt?
More data on the last stages of syph was not necessary.
Sensible based opinion on the Minaj thing:
https://counter-currents.com/2021/09/is-nicki-minaj-super-bass-ed/
“It can be incredibly annoying when famous blacks do “based” things. On one hand, I can see the value of blacks being politically divided, and it’s fun to see white liberals go into damage control and explain how such a person is a race traitor. On the other, ****such incidents are catnip “hope porn” for bluepilled normie conservatives that gives them false hope that maybe multiculturalism can work after all.****
.
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Generally speaking, blacks don’t seem particularly concerned about people who are overt racists. Rather, blacks are obsessed with the idea that the system is racist. Blacks care about liberal Karens more than they do Stahlhelm-wearing White Nationalists, because Karen will use the power of the establishment against blacks (call the police, complain to the manager, etc.), whereas an open White Nationalist does not have that kind of access to establishment power. Most blacks have probably never met a White Nationalist, but have met a Karen.
.
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My reading of the controversy is that it is a case of black stubbornness and ghetto blacks’ willingness to die on the most ridiculous of hills. Minaj told a tall tale and she is sticking to it. She is so committed to her story that she is willing to defend white supremacy rather than back down. Plus, it’s part of her public image to be a bad bitch from the hood who doesn’t take no shit and doesn’t let people tell her what to do. Part of it may also be old-school ghetto ethics of being loyal to people who are loyal to you. Tucker defended Minaj when everyone else was ridiculing her, so she defends Tucker.”
… the CIA’s work with LSD …
Johann Amadeus Metesky:
Don’t forget that Ted Kaczynski, who became the Unabomber, was a volunteer in the CIA’s LSD experiments at Harvard.
Nah, it’ll be fine!
The victor writes the history books. Who won at Tuskegee?
In another 10 years under Kama Xiden, what will the history books tell Neo and others like her, what is the “True history”?
None of that particularly matters.
Old humanity’s time is over. I am here to inform everyone who may or may not concern themselves, that their time is up.
Much of humanity, several billion at least, have voluntarily injected themselves with a wuhan designed, American funded, bio weapon. The Mark of Satan/AI itself.
It’s over.
Just sit back and watch it play out. THere’s not much to do but wait for the Judgment of Soddom.
I will be busy on the field of war, however. See you next year, humans. Or whomever manages to remain human after stage 10 of the GMO treatments.
Zaphod:
Minaj is neither representative of any group nor is she the vanguard of anything or the hoped-for anything. As far as I’m concerned, she’s an individual speaking her mind and people are trying to silence her, and she’s not backing down. In this day and age, that apparently takes some bravery. Doesn’t matter to me if she’s right or wrong, or if I agree with her.
You’re not into liberty; we already know that. And you think in terms of sweeping generalizations about groups, and not in terms of individuals. You’ve demonstrated that time and again.
As for syphilis prior to penicillin – I have found no evidence that sulfa drugs were successful in treating it. The cures (mercury, etc.) were not all that effective and they were extremely toxic.
Penicillin really seemed like a miracle cure. It stopped syphilis in its tracks. Withholding it was a crime. Of course, penicillin didn’t reverse the damage, and some of the men had been quite damaged from the disease. But syphilis has a variable course long term, and some were probably fine at the point that penicillin was available and my guess is that it would have prevented any further complications.
Did the study have any value? I doubt it. A lot was already known about the natural course of untreated syphilis by that time. Learning about the natural course of untreated syphilis was the only potential value the study had. Why even study untreated syphilis any more, once a virtually surefire cure was available?
Neo, thank you for the posts about the syphilis studies and the Indian blankets, very interesting!
Zaphod,
“Rather, blacks are obsessed with the idea that the system is racist.”
That’s true, as is the fact that 32% of blacks perceive racist attitudes among the majority of blacks.
However it is not the ‘karens’ bringing down the power of the establishment upon their heads that is responsible for their belief that “the system” is racist.
Though some racism remains, America may well be the least racist society on earth. It’s really quite simple, if they don’t play the victim, they have to take responsibility for the consequences of their choices.
Ymar,
We’re not going to experience another “10 years under Kama Xiden”. What can’t go on… won’t go on. Most of all because in their ideological fanaticism they’ll simply go too far. They’re already stepping over the line in multiple areas. The restraint Americans are demonstrating is out of loyalty to simple decency and Constitutional governance.
They can’t stop. They lack a feedback mechanism to rein their madness in, and so like all tyrants, they sow the seeds of their own destruction.
This is what the CDC says about the Tuskeegee Experiment. Note how the Public Health System was working with the Tuskeegee Institute, which was run by blacks. The experiment ran for 11 years before penicillin was available, which is when things moved into the morally indefensible range. That the study continued beyond 1943 without treating the subjects probably had as much to do with bureaucratic inertia as it did racism.
Scary aside: because medicine has advanced so much maybe we aren’t learning as much as we can about some diseases because modern medicine prevents diseases from progressing naturally (yes, diseases are progressive, not conservative).
I think it’s important to distinguish between two levels of evil. In the early stages, 1932-1943, the men were lied to but not denied effective treatment since there were no effective treatments. That was ethically wrong but the men were not actually harmed. From 1943 to 1972, which is when the study came under public scrutiny and was ended, the subjects were not only lied to and denied effective treatment but the fact that they were lied to about being treated may have kept some from seeking effective treatment that was widely available elsewhere.
In 1932, the USPHS, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis. It was originally called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” (now referred to as the “USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee”). The study initially involved 600 Black men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease. Participants’ informed consent was not collected. Researchers told the men they were being treated for “bad blood,” a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. In exchange for taking part in the study, the men received free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance.
By 1943, penicillin was the treatment of choice for syphilis and becoming widely available, but the participants in the study were not offered treatment.
Ahh the cdc.
Gb, that is why war.
Americans held back because i psionically projected the prince of peace aura.
I have withdrawn it and the blessings of north america since the last few months.
Things will progressive relatively quickly from now on. 2 months.
In feb 2020 i wrote that the world was not ending and people would not die as expected from covid. Because i and god were healing the issue. When god tells me the world is ending, i will inform humanity.
I am now informing.
Penicillin was not widely available to civilians during WWII. Sulfa was.
Illiterate rural blacks knew that “bad blood” was bad, but they were largely medically ignorant as rocks.
The Left used it as an exploiting tool back in 1972, while ignoring the 60 million murders of Mao, and pulling the rug out from under the South Vietnamese and the drownings of untold numbers of Boat People.
Let us keep things in perspective!
Cicero:
I don’t think there was a high level of medical sophistication in the population in general back then, either.
As far as sulfa goes as a syphilis treatment, I have read lengthy articles on the history of syphilis and its treatment and do not recall ever reading that sulfa was used for that particular purpose (treating syphilis) prior to the advent of penicillin. For example:
The article adds that for neurosyphilis they sometimes gave the patient maleria to induce a fever, and then quinine.
These cures were not all that effective and were toxic. But that’s apparently all there was for syphilis until penicillin, which was remarkably effective in those days and relatively safe.
Also, no one here is saying anything even remotely like “this was worse than the 60 million murders of Mao, or the abandonment of South Vietnam.” Where would you even get that idea?
Various memoirs of WW II have medics or other soldiers ripping open “sulfa packets” to treat the wounded.
That had been abandoned when I was in.
Neo:
My point was 1) study began in 1932, when there was no penicillin. Plus 2) The Left used Tuskegee and its “Guinea pigs” to incite racial resentment, despite the fact that not all of the 299 syphilitics died of Stage 3 disease, but of other causes, while that same Left ignored mass communist murder.
The Tuskegee patients were predominantly illiterate, minimally educated rural South Alabama blacks who signed their names as “X”, thus the “bad blood” diagnosis. The study fed them meals!
You have not experienced ignorant, uneducated, subsistence lifestyle rural blacks like I have, in the 1960s and ’70s. Have you ever been in rural south Alabama or Mississippi? Surely not.
Cicero. For argument’s sake, Tuskegee and the commies aren’t connected. It’s certainly possible to oppose both but they’re in different categories. One being America isn’t supposed to do that stuff.
Everybody dies. Point is…the penicillin was withheld to no purpose. All that could be learned was redundant.
Penicillin might have stopped or slowed the syphillis, which could have reduced the impact of the other issues you mention.
Point is, somebody said…”This might help. Let’s not use it on these guys.” About the time that it was being produced as fast as the civilized world could produce anything both for conventional medical use and for the war. It was a miracle drug, compared to that which had been used in its stead. And a few doses might, at least, have eased these guys’ last years. But, no.
Not entirely connected, but Zinnser, “Rats, Lice, and History” describes a pre-penicillin world.
Zaphod, why do you state Nikki “told a tall tale?”
It’s been known for many months that orchitis is experienced by some of the males who get injected with mRNA.
(Now, whether the wedding got canceled or not–I’ll grant you that may be some embellishment.)
A virologist who has spent her life trying to develop vaccines against corona viruses pleaded with the FDA during her testimony to the committee deciding on allowing EU for teens to not do so, as her animals invariably had their germ cells destroyed in every animal experiment she had ever done.
If you had asked me about the Tuskegee syphilis study, I would have described it in the traditional manner, with the researchers intentionally giving the research subjects the disease. It’s always been too easy for a distorted explanation of a historical event to be accepted as something “everybody knows.” This is one more reason why the monopoly of information the left is trying to impose is so dangerous; it allows the misinformation to spread with no opportunity to correct it.