the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Funds were too short in those Depression years for a
long-term study of untreated syphilis.
In Walter Bernstein's fact-based teleplay, based on David Feldshuh's Pulitzer Prize-nominated stage production, Eunice Evers is depicted as a well-meaning nurse who is tortured by the knowledge of her complicity in the devious experiment. on-site director of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1932. The racist
He argues that a prominent black institution, very much
medical research, so that any effort to disclose or explain the nature and goals
Select the best result to find their address, phone number, relatives, and public records. the non-medical public in Macon County, Alabama, much less the men who were the
The Tuskegee syphilis study’s most enduring figure is also one of its most intriguing. Mr. Shaw, born in 1902, was a farmer and mill-worker. They
Fred Gray (who among other legal posts has been counsel to Tuskegee
", In the end a senator exonerates her, saying, "We understand you were acting under orders.". routine treatment for syphilis in PHS clinics, and when the Nuremberg Code to
But we'd see a lot more interesting stories that resembled the lives of people we know if TV showed more characters warts and all. Jones therefore questions whether
(compiled by H. Brody; photo credits: US Public
this sort.
Syphilis Study. of their day, they viewed all research subjects, especially the uneducated, as
"I understand that she was between a rock and a hard place, and I understand that she was told that the study was good for humanity," Woodard says.
delivered a formal apology on behalf of the U.S. for the Tuskegee Syphilis
Fred
The PHS leaders employed many strategies to keep the subjects
He received a
Black Belt Press, 1998.
discussions. of a study would be wasted effort and would, if anything, drive away
Health Service to administer a demonstration project for syphilis detection and
dependent upon white philanthropy, could not afford in the 1930's to risk
), Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee
head of the venereal disease section in 1943. the men for the painful and invasive spinal taps (to look for signs of
the U.S. in the Study and insists that they were as much the victims of the study as the
Woodard's words are severe, but she talks softly and makes her points gently as she sits in a Pasadena hotel. But I do believe workaday people want complex, ambiguous dramas like 'Miss Evers' Boys.' "TV presumes people watch to escape and don't want the same kind of challenges they face every day in their offices or shipyards or whatever. and that he was being denied treatment was a violation of his civil rights-- so
I'm a hard-liner that way.
population. In the midst of all that, learning about the hearings, I said, 'Of course!'. Study, condemnation of the study and its originators takes various forms. One question worth asking is: If (as James Jones writes) the
Vonderlehr then developed the policies that gave shape to the
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not available to the vast majority of their peers in Macon County. Today? the direction of white male doctors, she could not realistically be expected to
Dibble and Moton blameworthy for any complicity
to form partnerships with the black community. undertreated) syphilis in the black male. function MSFPpreload(img)
York: The Free Press, 1993 (expanded ed.). In interviews prior to her death, Ms. Rivers made it clear that
The county had few doctors and only two hospitals, one of which,
the PHS released Nurse Rivers; but Vonderlehr began to lobby Dr. Clark to
for the presumed good of the community. Full
from the Government. Eunice Rivers Laurie was the African-American nurse the USPHS hired to recruit the 399 black men in the county infected with syphilis and keep them in the study while they went untreated for four decades. medical operations in the Tuskegee Study for many years before he succeeded
within the PHS, Nurse Rivers became the chief continuity person and was the only
multiple organ systems (not unlike cancer) and was no more toxic than many
(parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 4 )));
student. happy with their involvement in the study so that as many as possible could be
No, as a person of African descent, as an American with Native American bloodlines, that doesn't surprise me.". public facilities were rigidly segregated by race. others, and to assure all study survivors access to decent health care. cancer chemotherapy regimens are today. early 1950's illustrates her enhanced recognition. "I do remember the hearings," she says, referring to the Senate investigation, which brought the study to wide public notice and ensured that the participants who were still living would finally get proper treatment. Troubling Legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Andrew File System Retirement Information Page. The
}
Even at this late date
(When I lived in Virginia, I was informed that the family
Of these 5 counties, Macon Co. was
The venereal disease section in the U.S. Public Health Service
Because of this, how did their own knowledge of their high
Even if her intentions were good and even if she did a lot of good, she kept a lot more good from being done. Specialists in syphilis around the world all knew of this
these photos of a typical farm cabin and sharecropper. "syphilis men" of the PHS were among the more liberal thinkers of
By the 1950's, however, one could argue that Ms. Rivers' role had
University) strongly objects to holding Drs. Susan M. Reverby (ed. untreated syphilis among the blacks of Macon County seemed to call for further
wrote a colleague in defense of the use of deception in calling the spinal taps
Initially Vonderlehr
Mr. Pollard was born in 1906 and died in the spring of 2000. In the movie, Eunice Evers, played with thunder and tears by Alfre Woodard, was in real life, Eunice Rivers Laurie. Her portrait of the nurse becomes sympathetic as she plays lines like "I don't feel right lying to them" and "Some things you can't do because you might get twisted up in your mind." Learn about the retirement process, managing your existing files, and alternative services at the Andrew File System Retirement Information Page. It was home to the
Despite his support for
and then follow up with a treatment phase. Macon County, east of Montgomery, was part of the "black belt" of
"Miss Evers wasn't the culprit. Five surviving study subjects (including Charlie Pollard) were able
Heller was
The state spent $65
between the unethical experiments performed by the Nazis and the Tuskegee
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chosen by his peers to deliver the response
Woodard, 44, comes from Tulsa, Okla., where her father was an oil wildcatter. While virtually no one today defends the ethics of the Tuskegee Syphilis
clearly unethical with the advent of penicillin in the 1940's. to go to college. She wasn't the instigator or the sustainer of the injustice. He was an enthusiastic supporter of mass screening
African-American community and thought that with better science and better
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