The Backstory, Episode 4: Tuskegee Was 'The Tip of the Iceberg'
CHOICE/LESS
English - June 21, 2017 09:30 - 22 minutes - 20.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 111 ratingsPersonal Journals Society & Culture abortion reproductive rights reproductive justice women's rights supreme court serial storytelling pro-choice pro-life contraception Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: The Backstory, Episode 3: 'Some People Say It Was Part of Eugenics. We Say It Was Genocide'
Next Episode: Wendy Davis: Three Minutes Past Midnight
When people hear about racism in medical testing and research, they often bring up the infamous "Tuskegee Study," a decades-long program in which the government pretended to treat 400 Black men with syphilis. In fact, the government withheld adequate treatment to observe the effects of the disease.
"There was a whole history of racism in medicine and research, but this was the definitive study that was well-documented," said Bill Jenkins, a statistician with the the agency funding the program at the time of the study, who helped to blow the whistle on it.
In the final episode of CHOICE/LESS: The Backstory, Bill Jenkins talks about the study, its legacy, and what we can learn from it.