My Sociology class is studying the Tuskegee experiment and we were asked to discuss the different aspects of it. My feeling is that without the original study protocol we don't know that this was racially motivated versus it was a crime of opportunity. For those not familiar with this study you can read about it on the CDC's website. (I currently can't post links) Did the doctors, wanting to study the spread and effects of syphilis, choose a group of people that were disposable and that group happened to be African-American? Or did they, from the start, seek to watch the disease spread and devastate this specific African-American community? There is no way of telling. We do know that they prayed on the uneducated and poor, had this group been Asian or Caucasian they could have just as easily been the target. Once they found a vulnerable group did they then mold the experiment to be a black vs white study thus giving it its racial structure? Some good came of this travesty, FDA and GCP regulations now require strict documentation, informed consent and whistle blowing from all Clinical staff members. On the other hand Big Pharma has just moved on to exploit us in new and interesting ways. What's more profitable? Treating a symptom or curing a disease? They have also moved onto the poor and uneducated people in third world countries as their new targets. So what's your feeling? Racially motivated or crime of opportunity?
Perhaps not due to overt racism, but surely done by racists whose notions of ethical behavior was heavily influenced by the race of the people victimized. It could also have been due to the apparently correct notion that they could get way with the experiments due to the wide spread racist attitudes of the era. One of the worst aspects of racist behavior is the complicity of police & courts in not applying the pertinent laws & punishing criminal behavior. Those who are not willing to at least verbally condemn racist behavior are indicating approval by their failure to act.
