[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 66 (Monday, May 19, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   TRIBUTE TO THE SURVIVORS AND FAMILIES OF THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE 
                        TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS STUDY

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. BOB RILEY

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 16, 1997

  Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call the attention of the 
House to today's White House ceremony in which President Clinton will 
issue a formal apology today to the eight survivors of the Tuskegee 
syphilis study.
  From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study, 
the ``Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,'' in 
which they withheld treatment to 399 syphilis patients in Macon County, 
AL.
  The intent of the study was to determine if syphilis caused 
cardiovascular damage more than neurological damage and if the natural 
course of syphilis differed between races. Treatment was given in the 
initial stages of the study but then withheld after the original study 
failed to produce any significant data. Even penicillin was denied to 
the infected participants when it became available in 1947.
  It wasn't until a health worker went public in 1972 that the study 
was called into question.
  Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that more than 100 of the participants, 
who were all impoverished sharecroppers from Macon County, died of 
tertiary syphilis. The Ad Hoc Advisory Panel that was appointed in 1972 
to review the study determined that the Tuskegee study was ethically 
unjustified. They further concluded that the amount of knowledge gained 
was minimal in comparison to the risks that the study posed for the 
participants.
  I am outraged that such an experiment was conducted in the United 
States. In 1974, the National Research Act created the National 
Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and 
Behavioral Research, which ensured that basic principles of research 
were established and followed from that point forward.
  These actions, of course, are too little, too late for the victims of 
the Tuskegee syphilis study. In fact, the survivors and families of the 
participants have never received a formal apology until today. Now, 65 
years after the start of this unethical study, the survivors will 
finally receive the long, overdue apology.
  I consider this tragedy a dark chapter in our Nation's history. My 
thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families and hope 
that at least a small part of their pain may be relieved by today's 
ceremony. If nothing else, I hope today's apology helps bring closure 
to this national disgrace.
  We must work to ensure that atrocities like that Tuskegee syphilis 
study will never again happen in the United States.

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