8. The STD experiments
Syphilis was a pretty common illness among black sharecroppers, in 1930’s Tuskegee. The treatments available at the time, mercury ointments and Arsphenamine, were found to be toxic. Administering them always caused mouth ulcers, rashes and eventual liver damage.
Rather than finding a suitable cure, the US Public Health Service decided to experiment by withholding treatment from syphilis-infected African Americans. For 40 years, patients were denied treatment for the disease. They were either given a placebo or deliberately misdiagnosed. Of the 400 patients studied, only 74 were alive by the end of the experiment. During the course of the study, 40 of the patients wives had contracted the disease and 20 children were born with congenital syphilis.
But that wasn’t the only syphilis experiment carried out; in 1947, when penicillin was found to cure the disease, the US government decided to test its efficacy. Moving to Guatemala, American researchers paid infected prostitutes to spread the disease to unsuspecting johns. Some were given penicillin to see if it would cure them, others were denied treatment. Of the 500 people denied treatment, 80 died.
This study was kept secret until a Tuskegee researcher found it in 2010; its exposure led to President Obama apologizing to the Guatemalan people.
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