Posted on 05/02/2008 4:44:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
“But why blacks remain the most reliable voters for the party of ever-expanding government power is something of a mystery. Indeed, it’s worth noting that the Tuskegee study, launched under the New Deal, was symptomatic of arrogant liberal government. The study “emerged out of a liberal progressive public health movement concerned about the health and well-being of the African-American population,” writes University of Chicago professor Richard Schweder. He adds: “The study was done with the full knowledge, endorsement and participation of African-American medical professionals, hospitals and research institutes.”
Say no more...!
When it comes to callous disregard for people — and, disproportionately, black people — one need look no further than legalized abortion. That’s a travesty. But some folks approve of it whole heartedly, while believing myths about Tuskegee and calling it an abomination.
Thank you for this article. It is yet another example of what we could NEVER read in the ratmedia. They are more comfortable with lies. The truth hurts their eyes.
Hoover was a Progressive.
Wait, I thought that was crack.
AIDS was created to murder homosexuals.
If I believed that the *government*, or anyone with power, had targeted senior white rural females with a horrendous disease and a destructive drug, both only a risk if the targets indulged in certain behaviors, then I and everyone I know who fit the target description, would AVOID those behaviors in self defense.
So, those who believe this have a way to resist. Why haven’t they?
I agreed with Wright that Tuskegee was reprehensible, but aside from that, the man has worms in his brain.
Same goes for crack. I don't see anyone forcing people to sell or smoke it.
If I believed that someone had created something to destroy me if I used it, I darn sure wouldn't play into the plan.
Tuskegee was very bad, but it was not a plot against blacks, even against the particular blacks involved.
One of the rarely discussed dirty secrets of the medical establishment has been the tendency to use groups of poor people as guinea pigs. Treatments have been tested on patients in mental hospitals, prisons, and or simply poor communities of any color where people might not have the knowledge or ability to resist. One of the reasons that there are now so many safeguards connected with any test program or study is because of the gross abuses of the past.
Not, of course, that this necessarily prevents current abuses: I knew someone who was treated at the clinic of a major teaching hospital for a relatively minor thing that could have been dealt with in one office visit. Because the doctor was performing a study, however, the condition was not treated immediately; the patient was forced to come for visit after visit for unnecessary, painful “treatments” that accomplished nothing, all so that the doctor could perform his study. (Finally a nurse intervened and insisted that the patient receive the regular treatment.)
This was apparently a common practice, and the doctors simply regarded the poor and often non-English speaking patients of this clinic as a set of large guinea pigs provided for their use.
This has a lot more to do with the medical establishment than with the US government, but of course that will never be mentioned.
The proof of this statement is to simply observe the surroundings of most major research/teaching hospitals. In the case of Johns Hopkins, the surrounding neighborhood is so bad that women are actively discouraged from walking alone at night. The population is predominately black, and the trauma center (for treating gunshot victims for example) has a world-class rating. The only anti-thesis I can think of is Georgetown, which exists in a very nice neighborhood.
How so? No man was forced to enter, or remain, in this program. They had already been infected for quite some time ("they were tertiary-stage syphilitics ") so the clearly weren't deliberately infected by the researchers. This particular project* used black men exclusively b/c of the disproportion of the disease in this group.
*Was this type of study never feature on non-blacks? Was Tuskegee the only one ever to exclusively use black? If not, why have we not heard of the others? If so, why no cries of racism, why no outrage that more tests/studies weren't done?
Perhaps I’m wrong, but as I recall, they were not informed they had syphilis in the first place. If you don’t know you have an illness, if you don’t know you’re part of such a program, how can you know that you’d like to be “out” of it and properly treated?
Never mind, I just re-read it and I am wrong. Mea culpa.
LA-County Hospital is like that. They send medical people from all over the country to study there, because they deal with every trauma imaginable. On the other hand, people living in those infested places have medical care available.
Are researchers "negotiating" from a position of power? Sure.
Remember the HIV/AIDS types screaming to be put into trials for whatever treatment was proposed? It's not just the poor.
Back in the late 70’s early 80’s when this thing got its start we knew next to nothing about retrovirus and little about helper T cells; and to this day nobody could design ‘de novo’ a viral protein that would enable it to enter a particular cell type.
This thing came from Simian Immune Virus (S.I.V.) and mutated as it evolved to better infect its new host.
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