Getting ethics into practice: Tuskegee was bad enough

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7464.513

BMJ 2004;329:513 (28 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7464.513

Letter

Getting ethics into practice

Tuskegee was bad enough

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—Parker wrote about getting medical ethics intopractice.¹ Atrocious as it was, the Tuskegee experiment as Iunderstand it did not entail infecting anyone with syphilis.Rather, a group of poor and poorly educated African Americans(not prisoners) who had syphilis were left untreated and insome cases denied treatment for other intercurrent infectionsas well.

Tuskegee has cast a long shadow. Even today, conspiracy theoriesabout the origins of HIV and AIDS may be best understood interms of a legacy of mistrust about the motives of governmenthealth officials. Hence it is important not to spread furthermisinformation about this dark episode in the history of theUS public health service.

Hilary Curtis, freelance consultant on HIV/AIDS and sexual health

London NW6 7HF hilary@regordane.net

Competing interests: None declared.