Editing Tuskegee Syphilis Study (section)

===Scientific failings===
Aside from a study of racial differences, one of the main goals that researchers in the study wanted to accomplish was to determine the extent to which treatment for syphilis was necessary and at what point in the progression of the disease it should be treated. For this reason, the study emphasized observation of individuals with late latent syphilis.<ref name="Brandt-1978" /><ref name="Reverby-2009" /> However, despite clinicians' attempts to justify the study as necessary for science, the study itself was not conducted in a scientifically viable way. Because participants were treated with mercury rubs, injections of neoarsphenamine, protiodide, [[Arsphenamine|Salvarsan]], and bismuth, the study did not follow subjects whose syphilis was untreated, however minimally effective these treatments may have been.<ref name="Brandt-1978" /><ref name="Reverby-2009" />

Austin V. Deibert of the PHS recognized that since the study's main goal had been compromised in this way, the results would be meaningless and impossible to manipulate statistically. Even the toxic treatments that were available before the availability of penicillin, according to Deibert, could "greatly lower, if not prevent, late syphilitic cardiovascular disease ... [while] increas[ing] the incidence of neuro-recurrence and other forms of relapse."<ref name="Reverby-2009" /> Despite their effectiveness, these treatments were never prescribed to the participants.<ref name="Reverby-2009" />