Editing Tuskegee Syphilis Study (section)

==Study termination==
[[File:Peter Buxtun.jpg|thumb|200px|Peter Buxtun, a [[U.S. Public Health Service|PHS]] venereal disease investigator, the whistleblower]]
[[File:Tuskegee-syphilis-experiment-test-subjects.gif|thumb|right|250px|Group of Tuskegee Experiment test subjects]]

Several men employed by the PHS, namely Austin V. Deibert and Albert P. Iskrant, expressed criticism of the study, primarily on the grounds of poor scientific practice.<ref name="Reverby-2009" /> The first dissenter against the study who was not involved in the PHS was [[Count Gibson]], an associate professor at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He expressed his ethical concerns to PHS's Sidney Olansky in 1955.<ref name="Reverby-2009" />

Another dissenter was Irwin Schatz, a young Chicago doctor only four years out of medical school. In 1965, Schatz read an article about the study in a medical journal and wrote a letter directly to the study's authors confronting them with a declaration of brazen unethical practice.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Dr. Irwin Schatz, the first, lonely voice against infamous Tuskegee study, dies at 83|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/20/dr-irwin-schatz-the-first-lonely-voice-against-infamous-tuskegee-study-dies-at-83/|last=Kaplan|first=Sarah|newspaper=Washington Post|language=en|access-date=May 14, 2020|archive-date=May 14, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514160812/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/20/dr-irwin-schatz-the-first-lonely-voice-against-infamous-tuskegee-study-dies-at-83/|url-status=live}}</ref> His letter, read by Anne R. Yobs, one of the study's authors, was immediately ignored and filed away with a brief memo that no reply would be sent.<ref name="Reverby-2009" />

In 1966, [[Peter Buxtun]], a PHS venereal-disease investigator in San Francisco, sent a letter to the national director of the Division of Venereal Diseases expressing his concerns about the ethics and morality of the extended U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Tuskegee Truth Teller|url=https://theamericanscholar.org/tuskegee-truth-teller/|date=December 4, 2017|website=[[The American Scholar (magazine)|The American Scholar]]|language=en-US|access-date=May 14, 2020|archive-date=April 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200425055753/https://theamericanscholar.org/tuskegee-truth-teller/|url-status=live}}</ref> The CDC, which by then controlled the study, reaffirmed the need to continue the study until completion; i.e. until all subjects had died and been autopsied. To bolster its position, the CDC received unequivocal support for the continuation of the study, both from local chapters of the [[National Medical Association]] (representing African-American physicians) and the [[American Medical Association]] (AMA).<ref name="Reverby-2009" />

In 1968, [[William Carter Jenkins]], an African-American statistician in the [[U.S. Public Health Service|PHS]] and part of the [[Department of Health, Education, and Welfare]] (HEW), founded and edited ''The Drum'', a newsletter devoted to ending racial discrimination in HEW. In ''The Drum'', Jenkins called for an end to the study.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Bill Jenkins, epidemiologist who tried to end Tuskegee syphilis study, dies at 73|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bill-jenkins-epidemiologist-who-tried-to-end-tuskegee-syphilis-study-dies-at-73/2019/02/27/2319e142-3aa2-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html|last=Smith|first=Harrison|date=February 27, 2019|newspaper=Washington Post|language=en|access-date=May 14, 2020|archive-date=June 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200618001310/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bill-jenkins-epidemiologist-who-tried-to-end-tuskegee-syphilis-study-dies-at-73/2019/02/27/2319e142-3aa2-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He did not succeed; it is not clear who read his work.

Buxtun finally went to the press in the early 1970s. The story broke first in the ''[[Washington Star]]'' on July 25, 1972, reported by [[Jean Heller]] of the Associated Press.<ref name="Heller-1972" /> It became front-page news in the ''[[New York Times]]'' the following day. Senator [[Ted Kennedy|Edward Kennedy]] called [[Congressional hearings]], at which Buxtun and HEW officials testified. As a result of public outcry, the CDC and PHS appointed an ad hoc advisory panel to review the study.<ref name="Brown-2017" /> The panel found that the men agreed to certain terms of the experiment, such as examination and treatment. However, they were not informed of the study's actual purpose.<ref name="CDC-2020" /> The panel then determined that the study was medically unjustified and ordered its termination.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}

In 1974, as part of the settlement of a [[class action|class action lawsuit]] filed by the [[NAACP]] on behalf of study participants and their descendants, the U.S. government paid the plaintiffs $10 million {{USDCY|10000000|1974}} and agreed to provide free medical treatment to surviving participants and surviving family members infected as a consequence of the study. Congress created a commission empowered to write regulations to deter such abuses from occurring in the future.<ref name="CDC-2020" />

A collection of materials compiled to investigate the study is held at the [[National Library of Medicine]] in Bethesda, Maryland.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Documents on the origin and development of the Tuskegee syphilis study 1921-1973|url=https://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=nlmfindaid;idno=tuskegee264|website=oculus.nlm.nih.gov|access-date=May 14, 2020|archive-date=August 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809155256/https://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=nlmfindaid;idno=tuskegee264|url-status=live}}</ref>
{{clear}}