ng at all.
             On July 25, 1972, the Washington Evening Star newspaper ran this headline on its front page: "Syphilis Patients Died Untreated." With those words, one of America's most notorious medical studies, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, became public. "For 40 years, the U.S. Public Health Service has conducted a study in which human guinea pigs, not given proper treatment, have died of syphilis and its side
             Ethical Issues Involving the Tuskegee Syphilis Study 3
             effects," Associated Press reporter Jean Heller wrote on July 25, 1972. "The study was conducted to determine from autopsies what the disease does to the human body." From 1932 to 1972, African American males were denied treatment for syphilis and deceived by officials of the United States Public Health Service. As part of an experimental research study conducted in Macon County, Alabama, poor sharecroppers were told that they were being treated for ¡§bad blood.¡ However, treatment of these poor African American males with Syphilis wasn¡t the case at all. Instead, these males were provoked into believing that they were becoming a part of an observation study. This study required that the participant agree to an autopsy at the time of his death. Also, in compensation for each male who participated in the study, he would receive medical examinations free of charge and hot meals on the date of service, a means of transportation to and from the visit and burial insurance.
             The Tuskegee Syphilis Study continues to cast a long shadow over the relationship between African Americans and the biomedical professions; it is argued that the Study is a significant factor in the low participation of African Americans in clinical trials, organ donation efforts, and routine preventive care (Heller, 1972). Would including blacks in the planning stages of proposed research help overcome the negative effects of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study? The legacy of Tuskegee has to be ov...