Tuskegee syphilis study begins
1932Notable Contested
U.S. health officials withhold treatment from Black men for 40 years to study disease.
▲ Matters Save Share Trace roots
Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Babylonian mathematics → Babylonian astronomical diaries → Thales and natural philosophy → Trial and death of Socrates → Plato's Academy → Aristotle's Lyceum → Alexander's conquests → Alexandria founded → Library of Alexandria → House of Wisdom → Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics → Eyeglasses → Compound microscope → Microorganisms discovered → Handwashing in medicine → Germ theory of disease → Koch identifies the tuberculosis bacterium → Tuskegee syphilis study begins
Contested history Consensus: From 1932 to 1972, U.S. health officials studied untreated syphilis in hundreds of Black men without informed consent, even after penicillin became standard treatment.
The study happened as described Established
Exposed by a whistleblower in 1972; the U.S. government formally apologized in 1997.
Community notes Loading notes…
Learn more ranked by votes