Fiftieth Anniversary of Uncovering the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Story and Timeless Lessons

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the uncovering of the Tuskegee syphilis study when the public learned that the Public Health Service (precursor of the CDC) for 40 years intentionally withheld effective therapy against a life-threatening illness in 400 African American men. In 2010, we learned that the same research group had deliberately infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhoea in the 1940s to develop better methods for preventing these infections. Despite 15 journal articles detailing the results, no physician published a letter criticizing the Tuskegee study. The study is an especially powerful parable because readers can identify the key players in the narrative and recognize them as exemplars of people they encounter in daily life. The study spurred reforms leading to fundamental changes in research ethics infrastructure. The reason people fail to take steps to halt behaviour that, in retrospect, everyone judges reprehensible is complex. Lack of imagination, rationalization and institutional constraints are formidable obstacles.