CDC Director Rochelle Walensky sparked intense backlash for her arrogant and ignorant tweet regarding the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
“This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Tuskegee syphilis study. Tomorrow, I will be joined by colleagues & #PublicHealth leaders as we honor the 623 African American men, their suffering & sacrifice, and our commitment to ethical research and practice,” Walensky tweeted on Tuesday.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Tuskegee syphilis study. Tomorrow, I will be joined by colleagues & #PublicHealth leaders as we honor the 623 African American men, their suffering & sacrifice, and our commitment to ethical research and practice. https://t.co/cbR8Shy0Db
— Mandy K. Cohen, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) November 29, 2022
Walensky’s tweet forgets to mention that the subjects of this CDC-sponsored medical experiment were lied to and did not receive informed consent.
In fact, the subjects were told they’d receive free medical care.
“Doctors from the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS), which was running the study, informed the participants—399 men with latent syphilis and a control group of 201 others who were free of the disease—they were being treated for bad blood, a term commonly used in the area at the time to refer to a variety of ailments,” History stated.
“In order to track the disease’s full progression, researchers provided no effective care as the men died, went blind or insane or experienced other severe health problems due to their untreated syphilis,” History noted.
Cont. from History:
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.
Buxton then leaked the story to a reporter friend, who passed it on to a fellow reporter, Jean Heller of the Associated Press. Heller broke the story in July 1972, prompting public outrage and forcing the study to finally shut down.
By that time, 28 participants had perished from syphilis, 100 more had passed away from related complications, at least 40 spouses had been diagnosed with it and the disease had been passed to 19 children at birth.
Walensky said the 600+ men in this study made a ‘sacrifice.’
WRONG!
It’s one of the most despicable acts of medical experimentation in American history.
Twitter users blasted Walensky for her post:
This is one of the most disgusting fucking things I have ever read.
Don't ever talk shit to me about not trusting these people, ever again. pic.twitter.com/YokrRO3WLy
— Clifton Duncan (@cliftonaduncan) November 30, 2022
The Tuskegee experiment was not an experiment,
It was CDC sponsored torture and murder. The participants were NEVER told that they were deliberately given syphilis so they gave it to their families as well. These poor people were not ‘doing a sacrifice’ they were BEING sacrificed https://t.co/IAYsmoHnsH— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) December 1, 2022
Walensky learned nothing from government 'sacrificing' innocent lives (ala Dr Mengele)#Tuskegee
50 yrs from now, will she send a similar tweet abt the 'suffering & sacrifice' of those forced/coerced into taking an experimental innoculation she assured us was 'safe & effective'? https://t.co/5rwUTiZjNp
— Prairie Rose (@Prairie29594275) November 30, 2022
https://twitter.com/SeivwrightTrudy/status/1598176309297176576
You should have resigned a year ago over the misleading and false COVID vaccine claims you made, but the indefensible wording of this tweet is further evidence of your lack of an ethical mooring and your failure to surround yourself with people of good judgement. https://t.co/z6izvEUpa9
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 1, 2022
The New York Post reported:
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was ripped for stating in a tweet that the agency will honor the “suffering & sacrifice” of hundreds of African American men to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the notorious Tuskegee syphilis study.
The survey, conducted by the US Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972, examined 399 black men in Macon County, Ala., who had syphilis to determine the course of the infection and whether it affected them more than white men.
But the participants, mainly poor sharecroppers, were not informed they had syphilis, but only that they had “bad blood.”
Another 201 men without syphilis were also studied as a control group.
Even after penicillin became widely used in the 1940s to treat syphilis, the Tuskegee study subjects were denied access to it.
Here’s a screenshot of Walensky’s disgusting tweet in case it gets deleted:
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