Eugenics, Medical Education, and the Public Health Service
Another Perspective on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15025604 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul A Lombardo (0000-0001-7586-8072, University of Virginia), Gregory Michael Dorr |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 80 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 291-316 |
| Publication date | 2006-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bulletin of the history of medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-5140 • E-ISSN: 1086-3176 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/bhm.2006.0066 |
| PMID | 16809865 |
| OpenAlex | W1966368552 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 9 |
The Public Health Service (PHS) Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro (1932–72) is the most infamous American example of medical research abuse. Commentary on the study has often focused on the reasons for its initiation and for its long duration. Racism, bureaucratic inertia, and the personal motivations of study personnel have been suggested as possible explanations. We develop another explanation by examining the educational and professional linkages shared by three key physicians who launched and directed the study. PHS surgeon general Hugh Cumming initiated Tuskegee, and assistant surgeons general Taliaferro Clark and Raymond A. Vonderlehr presided over the study during its first decade. All three had graduated from the medical school at the University of Virginia, a center of eugenics teaching, where students were trained to think about race as a key factor in both the etiology and the natural history of syphilis. Along with other senior officers in the PHS, they were publicly aligned with the eugenics movement. Tuskegee provided a vehicle for testing a eugenic hypothesis: that racial groups were differentially susceptible to infectious diseases
Bureaucracy · Criminology · Eugenics · Family medicine · Military service · Political science · Politics · Public health · Racism · Sociology · Surgeon general · Syphilis · Historical Medical Research and Treatments · Law · Medical History and Research · Medicine · Nursing · Race, Genetics, and Society · Gerontology
Linking Public Health and Individual Medicine
Civilization and Syphilization
Charles V. Roman and the Spectre of Polygenism in Progressive Era Public Health Research
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the Scientific Concept of Racial Nervous Resistance
Diabetes and "Defective" Genes in the Twentieth-Century United States
Shaping undergraduate public health education through critical race theory
Changing How Race Is Portrayed in Medical Education
The violence of curriculum
Talk about race
Racism in healthcare
Pleasure, Affection, and Love Among Black Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) versus MSM of Other Races
Learning Analytics
Haunted by ableism
| Citations per year | 0.81 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2010 - 2025 (16) |
| Highly cited | No |