Tuskegee Syphilis Study

"The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens... clearly racist."

—President Clinton's apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the eight remaining survivors, May 16, 1997

For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all.

Read more: Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtuskegee1.html#ixzz2aZWY8tXr

Remembering "Bad Blood" NPR

Listen to the National Public Radio's program on "Remembering the Tuskegee Experiment".

National Bioethics Center - Tuskegee

The nation's first bioethics center, developed on the campus of Tuskegee University, 2 years after the Presidential Apology from U.S. President Clinton.

Nurse Eunice Rivers

Nurse Rivers was a key component for the Tuskegee Study. She was the one directly in touch with the subjects.

Here are links tosome articles on her role and her legacy:
Black Women in America
Faces of Tuskegee
The Black Commentator
Miss Rivers History - Google Books

Virtual Tuskegee Bioethics Museum

Tour the Tuskegee Bioethics Virtual Museum online and see both the history and the controls being put in place to prevent this from reoccurring.