Rating: 
Summary: Doctors of Death
Review: "Bad Blood" is a carefully researched and excellently written account of one of the most horrendous and despicable acts perpetrated by the United States Government, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. In 1932, four hundred illiterate and semi-literate black sharecroppers in Alabama who were diagnosed with syphilis were selected for an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Health Service, whose purport was to demonstrate that the course of untreated syphilis runs differently in blacks as opposed to whites. It was "race medicine" of the worst kind and, as a newspaper editorial stated when the experiment finally came to light 40 years later, it was ethically on a par with the medical experiments in the Nazi death camps. The men selected for the study were for the most part uneducated (only one man had reached the eighth grade and none had gone to high school), they were never explained the purpose of the study, and they were given no medicine to help their advancing symptoms. Even after penicillin was found in the 1940s to halt or significantly reduce the symptoms of the disease, it was withheld from the patients, who were left to die of advanced syphilis one by one. In 1972 the experiment was finally brought into the open by a young law student who passed the information to the Associated Press, and when the story broke on Page One of newspapers across the country, it caused a national firestorm. Journalists, public officials, and ordinary citizens were outraged by the news accounts. Incredibly, when the doctors involved in the experiment were asked for an accountability, their response was a collective shrug and a "so what?" The most explosive reaction, needless to say, was in the nation's black communities, which maintained that the government would never have run such an experiment on 400 white test subjects. The bitter legacy left by the Tuskegee Experiment is the fear and mistrust among many African-Americans of the entire medical establishment, and the suspicion that AIDS is a man-made disease created by the government with the express purpose of killing off blacks and gays; the holders of this belief, when asked why they think the government would do such a thing, invariably point to the Tuskegee Experiment as an example of what the government is capable of. The legacy of suspicion and mistrust generated by the Tuskegee Experiment may take generations to undo, and all of us, black and white, will be the losers.
Rating:
Summary: Doctors of Death
Review: "Bad Blood" is a carefully researched and excellently written account of one of the most horrendous and despicable acts perpetrated by the United States Government, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. In 1932, four hundred illiterate and semi-literate black sharecroppers in Alabama who were diagnosed with syphilis were selected for an experiment sponsored by the U.S. Health Service, whose purport was to demonstrate that the course of untreated syphilis runs differently in blacks as opposed to whites. It was "race medicine" of the worst kind and, as a newspaper editorial stated when the experiment finally came to light 40 years later, it was ethically on a par with the medical experiments in the Nazi death camps. The men selected for the study were for the most part uneducated (only one man had reached the eighth grade and none had gone to high school), they were never explained the purpose of the study, and they were given no medicine to help their advancing symptoms. Even after penicillin was found in the 1940s to halt or significantly reduce the symptoms of the disease, it was withheld from the patients, who were left to die of advanced syphilis one by one. In 1972 the experiment was finally brought into the open by a young law student who passed the information to the Associated Press, and when the story broke on Page One of newspapers across the country, it caused a national firestorm. Journalists, public officials, and ordinary citizens were outraged by the news accounts. Incredibly, when the doctors involved in the experiment were asked for an accountability, their response was a collective shrug and a "so what?" The most explosive reaction, needless to say, was in the nation's black communities, which maintained that the government would never have run such an experiment on 400 white test subjects. The bitter legacy left by the Tuskegee Experiment is the fear and mistrust among many African-Americans of the entire medical establishment, and the suspicion that AIDS is a man-made disease created by the government with the express purpose of killing off blacks and gays; the holders of this belief, when asked why they think the government would do such a thing, invariably point to the Tuskegee Experiment as an example of what the government is capable of. The legacy of suspicion and mistrust generated by the Tuskegee Experiment may take generations to undo, and all of us, black and white, will be the losers.
Rating: 
Summary: or, How racism permeates...
Review: I am not a doctor, a researcher nor an ethicist. I am an African American woman who grew up in southern Virginia, has heard off-the-cuff references to the Tuskegee incident almost all of my conscious-life, and finally wanted to read its details. While I agree with one reviewer who pointed out that the text does not read like a "thriller," I found the writing easy to understand as an indictment of racism whether systemically or individually manifest. I appreciate that the author took great care to provide a general framework of how people respond to the medical establishment (e.g. "follow the doctor's orders") while also detailing the way by which the doctors deliberately manipulated that trust to ensure the compliance of rural black men and black members of the profession. The latter is important - the author shows compliance and allegiance among the black medical officials who were pulled into the experiment, subtly encouraged by monetary or status rewards. I also like how the author painstakingly pulled together the text of meetings, memos and memoirs to show how bureaucracy, tradition and group think work to create racist outcomes - it suggested a universality to it, not a "only in the medical establishment" or "only in the South" version of events. And the author's telling of how all the institutions and individuals, when caught, backpedaled or otherwise covered up their role in the experiment was just amazing... Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: or, How racism permeates...
Review: I am not a doctor, a researcher nor an ethicist. I am an African American woman who grew up in southern Virginia, has heard off-the-cuff references to the Tuskegee incident almost all of my conscious-life, and finally wanted to read its details. While I agree with one reviewer who pointed out that the text does not read like a "thriller," I found the writing easy to understand as an indictment of racism whether systemically or individually manifest. I appreciate that the author took great care to provide a general framework of how people respond to the medical establishment (e.g. "follow the doctor's orders") while also detailing the way by which the doctors deliberately manipulated that trust to ensure the compliance of rural black men and black members of the profession. The latter is important - the author shows compliance and allegiance among the black medical officials who were pulled into the experiment, subtly encouraged by monetary or status rewards. I also like how the author painstakingly pulled together the text of meetings, memos and memoirs to show how bureaucracy, tradition and group think work to create racist outcomes - it suggested a universality to it, not a "only in the medical establishment" or "only in the South" version of events. And the author's telling of how all the institutions and individuals, when caught, backpedaled or otherwise covered up their role in the experiment was just amazing... Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A treasure, beautifully written
Review: I loved the loving care with which this book was written. The horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was that there truly was no evil intent on the part of the doctors involved, and all believed that the "patients" truly benefitted, receiving health care they otherwise would not have received for other ailments that they could not have afforded treatment for otherwise. In fact, the Tuskegee "patients" received health care for aches and pains that neither their neighbors nor even their wives and children were able to access, because of their "privileged" status as part of the "government study." Placing the story squarely in the context of its time, Jones does not excuse those who bear the responsibility for the choices they made regarding the men involved in the study, but attempts to explain to the best of his ability why those in authority made the decisions they made, even to the point of placing a black nurse in the pivotal position of overseeing the consistency of the study and maintaining contact with the study "subjects" while the doctors themselves were rotated every year as part of their own "educational" history. Even Tuskegee itself was run by black doctors who chose to look the other way when they knew, had to know, the detrimental decisions that were being made. That is how power works. That is how it worked then, and that is how it works today. Is it because of Tuskegee that the Public Health System lacks credibility? Or is it because of the ongoing and persistent ignorance and incompetence of the Public Health System itself? The system is infested with politics, funding fiascos and unethical practices. It didn't start with Tuskegee, and it certainly didn't end there. This is a very important part of the story, and should be mandated reading for anyone who wants to understand the controverted manipulations of the Public Health System. It is only the beginning, however. Don't stop there.
Rating:
Summary: It could not happen here?
Review: I own two copies of this important book. One to loan out to friends who believe that such a thing could not happen here in the United States, and, another copy to keep safely tucked away in my personal library.If the victims of this "Medical Experiment" had been Jewish and the perpetrators had been German, the entire workforce of the US Public Health Service would be tracked down and suitably punished for their "Crimes Against Humanity". Now, there is AIDS. People with African ancestory are genetically far more succeptable to AIDS than any one else. After reading this book, one wonders.....
Rating:
Summary: shocking
Review: I read this book for an Intro. to Sociology class at the University of Michigan and was shocked and appalled at the horrors that went on. I would like to thank Mr. Jones for writing this book. (It was a fairly easy-reader.)
Rating:
Summary: Ethics of Human Experimentation
Review: Jones has written an outstanding book which will likely make all readers question the ethics of human experimentation and why doctors choose the patients they do. The book covers the history of the Tuskeegee experiment, a study of the effects of untreated syphilis, or "bad blood," on poor black men in the South, from the 1930's to the 1970's. All of the players in the story, from the doctors, to the nurses, to the patients themselves are discussed in outstanding detail. The syphilis study was unquestioned when it began, as many doctors did not render treatment for syphilis, which could often be much worse than the cure. However, the experiment continued for almost forty years after the development of penicillin, which would have provided a ready cure for most of the subjects and not risk exposing their wives and children to infection. The experimenters took a great deal of trouble to ensure that their patients did not receive effective treatment for syphilis anywhere. The book's additional chilling reminder is that, on top of all the human suffering caused by this study, it had no scientific value whatsoever, as many of the subjects had been treated in some way, and there were other studies on the effects of syphilis. The concluding chapter is newly written to detail the linkages between the Tuskeegee experiment and the current AIDS crisis. This chapter discusses the reasons why many American blacks think the virus is targeted towards their communities.
Rating:
Summary: Ethics of Human Experimentation
Review: Jones has written an outstanding book which will likely make all readers question the ethics of human experimentation and why doctors choose the patients they do. The book covers the history of the Tuskeegee experiment, a study of the effects of untreated syphilis, or "bad blood," on poor black men in the South, from the 1930's to the 1970's. All of the players in the story, from the doctors, to the nurses, to the patients themselves are discussed in outstanding detail. The syphilis study was unquestioned when it began, as many doctors did not render treatment for syphilis, which could often be much worse than the cure. However, the experiment continued for almost forty years after the development of penicillin, which would have provided a ready cure for most of the subjects and not risk exposing their wives and children to infection. The experimenters took a great deal of trouble to ensure that their patients did not receive effective treatment for syphilis anywhere. The book's additional chilling reminder is that, on top of all the human suffering caused by this study, it had no scientific value whatsoever, as many of the subjects had been treated in some way, and there were other studies on the effects of syphilis. The concluding chapter is newly written to detail the linkages between the Tuskeegee experiment and the current AIDS crisis. This chapter discusses the reasons why many American blacks think the virus is targeted towards their communities.
Rating:
Summary: Landmark worth reading
Review: The "study" of the natural history of syphilis in black men is important to understand. Because it involved US federal funds and US federal researchers, it was a key demonstration that serious ethical problems in research were a mainstream event rather than a fringe problem; awareness of this project fueled concern for regulatory oversight and led to the development of federal regulations. James Jones' revelations were key to this process, and everyone involved in human subjects' research should read this book. Overall, the book is well researched and well presented. One of the more frightening aspects of Tuskegee is subtle, and doesn't get as thorough a treatment as it could have; that is, some of the outrageous features of the project were not the result of single outrageous decisions, but were rather the sum of many smaller errors. These are harder for a researcher to dismiss as things s/he could never have done. As a physician, I can comfortably say that I would never deliberately deny effective therapy to someone with a serious illness. But I can not as glibly say that I would have been the one to stand up and rebel when a protocol committee in the late 1940s or early 1950s decided that the evidence for penicillin's effectiveness in advanced syphilis was not QUITE good enough to mandate terminating the project. There are also some rough spots in some of the technical information, most glaringly a rather startlingly inaccurate description of what's involved in a spinal tap. Those are small issues, though. Overall, this is an excellent book that makes it abundantly clear why Tuskegee is so important to our thinking about research ethics, and helps the reader understand why certain racial and ethnic groups have a distrust of medical research.
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