Medical Apartheid: From the Tuskegee Experiments to the Present

Medical Apartheid
Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington Documents How Blacks Still Suffer at the Hands of Medicine (Click here for the Video )

"The fear of medicine is based on real events. And real events go way beyond -- way before and way after -- Tuskegee," says Harriet Washington. "There are things that are happening now that will keep [African Americans] from going to the hospital."


We've all heard of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and how black men were allowed to languish and spread this fatal disease in the name of medical research -- without their knowledge or permission.

In her recently released book, 'Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,' Harriet A. Washington painstakingly documents how blacks -- whether it's slave women unwillingly having gynecological experiments done on them or artificial blood being used in inner city hospitals -- have been dehumanized and often brutalized by a profession which takes an oath to heal.

Unfortunately, Tuskegee was not an anomaly.

It's no coincidence, Washington explains, that blacks do not seek medical care until "the pain is too much" often forsaking preventative care because of stories like these or blatant disrespect at the hands of doctors...Read More

Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Full Version with video:

Vanessa Northington Gamble, M.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, and is an internationally recognized expert on ... all » the history of race and racism in American medicine, cultural competence, and diversity. She discusses the enduring causes and consequences of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Series: "LeNoir/NMA Memorial Lecture"
Click here for Tuskegee In Photos