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Experimentation on Black people persisted into the 20th century. In Macon County, Alabama, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study lasted from 1932 to 1972. Researchers targeted a group of 600 Black men, many of whom were Southern sharecroppers or tenant farmers who were typically tied to the land they worked, having leased it from a landlord to eventually exchange as payment a share of the crops they produced. The study’s researchers told subjects that they were trying to treat a condition called “bad blood,” an umbrella term that, in the region at the time, was used for diseases such as anemia and syphilis.
In truth, though, the researchers wanted to understand how untreated syphilis affected Black men. Of the men studied, 201 did not have syphilis and about 399 men did have it; the former set was used as a control group in the study. Although penicillin was an established treatment for syphilis by this time, the men were never offered access to the medication to cure their disease. As a result of the researchers not treating these men for syphilis, about 128 of them died, plus 40 of their wives; 19 of their children were born with a congenital form of the disease.
A more recent example of shocking health disparities in the US came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over most of the pandemic, Black, Native American, and Hispanic people experienced higher rates of infection and death than white people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s research. One example of how race-based notions potentially impact patient health is the use of spirometers, devices that measure an individual’s lung capacity. These medical instruments are programmed to assume a 10-15% smaller lung capacity for Black patients. Because of this assumption, which is not always accurate, physicians are more likely to misdiagnose Black patients, resulting in patients who miss out on necessary treatments.
As an article in the Lancet medical journal pointed out, “Currently, there is no known major genetic locus that varies by race that can explain racial disparities in lung function; however, body proportions, socioeconomic status, and occupational hazards clearly influence capacity. These factors should be measured directly, rather than using race as a rough proxy.”
The stereotypes about Black lung capacity date back to the 1700s, when Thomas Jefferson said that enslaved persons and white people had a “difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus.” Over 100 years later, in the Civil War era, a study deemed African Americans to have a lesser lung capacity when compared with white Americans, based on a comparison of Black and white soldiers. And this is just one example. Black women are more likely to die during childbirth than white women, even when adjusted for income, and many medical trainees still believe that “Black people’s nerve endings are less sensitive than white people’s.”
To prevent further health injustices, like the one Dr. King spoke of decades ago, it is imperative to be educated on the history of the United States. By learning about the past, we can start to unlearn our racial biases and create a more just world.
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