Black Americans are avoiding the vaccine. One of the reasons is the group memory of the experiments the federal government conducted on poor blacks in the south. It started in 1932 and went until 1972 at Tuskegee Institute. The United States Public Health Service (USPHS) recruited 600 black men for a study involving syphilis. 399 already were infected and the rest could be considered a control group. At the beginning there might have been some legitimate, ethical scientific research being done but by 1943 penicillin had become a widely used and effective treatment. In what everyone agrees was an unethical move the USPHS continued the study, but continue it they did. The History Channel site relates the story.
In total disregard for the health of the men who had volunteered, well after penicillin was available,
“PHS researchers convinced local physicians in Macon County not to treat the participants, and instead research was done at the Tuskegee Institute.”To further their research they deliberately kept help away from the men.
It was years before what we would today call a whistle blower stepped forward.
“In the mid-1960s, a PHS venereal disease investigator in San Francisco named Peter Buxton found out about the Tuskegee study and expressed his concerns to his superiors that it was unethical. In response, PHS officials formed a committee to review the study but ultimately opted to continue it—with the goal of tracking the participants until all had died, autopsies were performed and the project data could be analyzed.”You wonder why people don’t trust the government? They have a history. I used to laugh at the idea. Our government wouldn’t do anything like that, right? No more do I laugh. I watch the NIH and CDC continuing the same type of research. They are once again using experimental drugs and guess what else, there are effective treatments available but your doctor is told not to use them.
Those of you who believe the government has the answers to today’s problems are not paying attention.
homo unius libri
Amen.
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