The men were not informed of the nature of the experiment, and more than died as a result. In the study, investigators enrolled impoverished African-American sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama. While the men were provided with both medical and mental care that they otherwise would not have received, [ 5 ] they were deceived by the PHS, who never informed them of their syphilis diagnosis [ 10 ] and provided disguised placebos, ineffective methods, and diagnostic procedures as treatment for "bad blood".
The men were initially told that the experiment was only going to last six months, but it was extended to 40 years.
None of the infected men were treated with penicillin despite the fact that, by , the antibiotic was widely available and had become the standard treatment for syphilis.
The study continued, under numerous Public Health Service supervisors, until , when a leak to the press resulted in its termination on November 16 of that year. The year Tuskegee Study was a major violation of ethical standards [ 12 ] and has been cited as "arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U. In , President Bill Clinton formally apologized on behalf of the United States to victims of the study, calling it shameful and racist.
We can look at you in the eye, and finally say, on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful and I am sorry. In , the "Oslo Study of Untreated Syphilis" had reported on the pathologic manifestations of untreated syphilis in several hundred white males.
