Abstract:
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: biotechnology and the administrative
state.
Roy, B. Journal of the National Medical Association. 1995
Jan;87(1):56-67.
ABSTRACT:
The central issue of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was property:
property in the body and intellectual property. Once removed from the
body, tissue and body fluids were not legally the property of the
Tuskegee subjects. Consequently, there was not a direct relationship
between a patient and research that used his sera. The Public Health
Service (PHS) was free to exercise its property right in Tuskegee sera to
develop serologic tests for syphilis with commercial potential. To
camouflage the true meaning, the PHS made a distinction between direct
clinical studies and indirect studies of tissue and body fluids. This
deception caused all reviews to date to limit their examination to
documents labeled by the PHS as directly related to the Tuskegee
Syphilis Experiment. This excluded other information in the public
domain. Despite the absence of a clinical protocol, this subterfuge led
each to falsely conclude that the Tuskagee Syphilis Experiment was a
clinical study. Based on publications of indirect research using sera and
cerebrospinal fluid, this article conceives a very history of the
Tuskagee Syphilis Experiment. Syphilis could only cultivate in living
beings. As in slavery, the generative ability of the body made the
Tuskegee subjects real property and gave untreated syphilis and the sera
of the Tuskegee subjects immense commercial value. Published protocols
exploited the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to invent and commercialize
biotechnology for the applied science of syphilis serology.
Return to Select Bibliography on the Tuskegee
Study.