Connect the Dots

Event

The Tuskegee study made public

Associated Press story of 25 July 1972, from documents given by Peter Buxtun, after which the study was reviewed and ended.

2 links, 1 backed by primary records

Play the story Explore connections

Dates
25 Jul 1972

Connections 2

involved

  • Peter Buxtun gave the documents to the reporter Scholarship & press 12

led to

Timeline 1 date
  1. 25 Jul 1972 The Tuskegee study made public
Proof 5 sources
  1. Tuskegee Truth Teller, The American Scholar, 4 Dec 2017. Scholarship & press
    Only when Associated Press reporter Jean Heller wrote about the abuse, using documents provided by Buxtun, did the Tuskegee study eventually end.
    It is unclear whether Brown ever read that report, but he certainly read a letter Buxtun sent him in November 1966.
    Have any of the men been told the nature of this study?
    In other words, are untreated syphilitics still being followed for autopsy?
    The March 1967 summons to Atlanta coincided with an annual conference for healthcare workers specializing in venereal disease.
    Send me everything.
    Soon he had become a venereal disease tracker.
  2. Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Encyclopedia of Alabama. Scholarship & press
    Buxtun gave his information to Jean Heller, an Associated Press reporter, who published the story on July 25, 1972
    No one was ever prosecuted for the crimes committed during the study, despite violations of Alabama state law on reporting disease and what could have been construed as intentionally causing deaths.
  3. The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee Timeline, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4 Sep 2024. Primary record
    In 1972, an Associated Press story about the study was published. As a result, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs appointed an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to review the study.
    In October 1972, the panel advised stopping the study. A month later, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs announced the end of the study.
    Later in 1973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the study participants and their families, resulting in a $10 million, out-of-court settlement in 1974.
    The last study participant died in January 2004.
  4. Final Report of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 28 Apr 1973. Primary record
    In retrospect, the Public Health Service Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro in Macon County, Alabama, was ethically unjustified in 1932.
    made with the advantage of hindsight acutely sharpened over some forty years
    a person should not be subjected to avoidable risk of death or physical harm unless he freely and intelligently consents
    judged to be scientifically unsound and its results are disproportionately meager compared with known risks to the human subjects involved
  5. "Ethically Impossible": STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, Sep 2011. Primary record
    Many African-Americans believe that the government let doctors give people syphilis. While that did not happen in Tuskegee
Page history 1 change
  1. Add 55 stories, each checked against its sourcesAlibek96e92fe6

Something wrong or missing? Tell us, with a source, or edit this page.