Epidemiologist Dara Mendez, Ph.D., M.P.H., pediatrician Diane Rowley, M.D., epidemiologist Theresa Chapple-McGruder, Ph.D., and epidemiologist Bill Jenkins, Ph.D., who blew the whistle on the experiment at Tuskegee while working at the U.S. Public Health Service, gather at the 2017 meeting of the American Public Health Association. (Photo courtesy of Theresa Chapple)
When writing about the 50th anniversary of the revelation of the U.S. Public Health Service study at Tuskegee, I reached out to several Black health care professionals to ask for their perspectives on the study’s legacy a half-century later. Five women — an epidemiologist, two psychiatrists, a surgeon, and an HIV primary care physician — offered their insight. This post shares two of those perspectives, one focused on the man who blew the whistle on the experiment and the other on how the legacy of the experiment at Tuskegee is playing out with monkeypox.
Key takeaways
- The whistleblower who ensured the world found out about the U.S. Public Health Service study at Tuskegee, Bill Jenkins, Ph.D., has also been a role model to Black epidemiologists in showing how to stand up to racism within the system.
- Although the “Tuskegee study” is a convenient shorthand, it’s more appropriate and accurate to refer to the experiment as the ”U.S. Public Health Service study at Tuskegee” to keep the blame on the perpetrators rather than the victims.
- The experiment at Tuskegee lives on in a collective memory of those in the Black community even when they don’t necessarily know the details of the specific study.
- The distrust many in the Black community have toward the health care system is less about this one experiment than is “the everyday interactions” they have today, as “many Tuskegees” are occurring all the time.
- The rollout of the monkeypox vaccine demonstrates how treatment is being denied to Black communities that need it.
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Tara Haelle (@TaraHaelle) is AHCJ's medical studies core topic leader, guiding journalists through the jargon-filled shorthand of science and research and enabling them to translate the evidence into accurate information.
