On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at one of the worst government conspiracy theories and most egregious cases of abusing medical ethics in American history—the Tuskegee Experiment. In a nutshell, the Tuskegee Experiment was the time the American government identified hundreds of African Americans who had syphilis and gave them medical treatment. Oh, but by medical treatment, I mean refused to give them any real medicine, even once there was a cure, and instead just watched them all go blind, dumb, and mad and die from a horrible disease that they spread to their loved ones. And took notes.

So what led this horror show of modern medicine? Aside from racism, it was a chance to watch a disease go unchecked. So, they recruited 600 black men based on what the doctors told them was “bad blood.” That’s right, for years, the doctors told these men they had bad blood and they were being treated for it. In reality, they were rotting away from syphilis for as long as 40 years (from 1932-1972). When a cure was finally discovered, the doctors refused to give it to the men. In fact, the doctors refused to even tell the men what their diagnosis or prognosis was aside from bad blood.

They even had a nurse who would spy on the men and keep other doctors who weren’t part of the Tuskegee Experiment from treating the men. Eventually, a whistle blower who found out about this in 1966 told people up the chain about this horrible experiment, and it was immediately put to a stop. Just kidding. Nobody up the chain did anything, and the suffering of the subjects was allowed to continue for several more years. Ultimately, a writer for the New York Times got the story and blew the lid off in 1972, and the Tuskegee Experiment was shut down within the month.

So, how many people in the experiment died from syphilis? How many spread the disease to their wives and children? How was this allowed to happen? What did Bill Clinton do to try and make things right? What did the victims of the experiment eventually get as a settlement for themselves and their children? What impact did the Tuskegee Experiment have on African American trust in the medical system? What did the government do in Guatemala that was even more evil? Listen, laugh, learn.