Reparation, Bill Jenkins, and a legacy of courage

Abstract

The Ethics of Reparations and Reconciliation." 1 This is a theme that urges all of us to reflect on examples of personal, professional, institutional, state, national, and global wrongdoing. It urges us to ask how we learn, and move forward, from acts and omissions that have humiliated, harmed, enslaved, and exploited fellow humans. In 1619, 400 years ago, the Transatlantic Middle Passage slave trade began, transporting millions of Africans to launch chattel slavery in North America. Many readers are aware of the US Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee (USPHS Syphilis Study). The study recruited 399 African American men and retained them in the study for 40 years so that researchers could track the natural progression of syphilis. 2 None of the men were told the truth about the study or their diagnosis. Instead, they were told that they had "bad blood." None of the men gave informed consent to participate in the study, and none of them were offered antibiotic treatment when it became available in the 1950s. Many of the men died on syphilis to partners and children. Some of the men died as a result of syphilis or of an associated co-morbidity. It was only in 1972 that the research misconduct, and human suffering as a result of it, was brought to public attention. An African American epidemiologist, Bill Jenkins, was employed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the time. He attempted to expose the flawed so-called research in the late 1960s and was ignored. Dr Jenkins recently died after a very successful career at the CDC, which is located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America (USA). Historian and author, Susan Reverby, said that Jenkins was "one of the first African American professionals at the CDC" to join the minority voices raised to bring to an end the notorious USPHS Syphilis Study. 3 Dr Jenkins was among many African Americans at the CDC and beyond, who was concerned about the unequable and inequitable treatment of African Americans in the USA. To raise concerns about racial and ethnic social and health injustices required the virtue of courage. The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were decades when awareness of prejudice, discrimination, and racism toward African Americans was increasing. Nevertheless, there were scientists and public health officials in the federal and state governments who maintained the study for almost four decades stating: "We have felt a moral obligation to continue the study" (p. 79). 3 Bill Jenkins' courageous action in speaking out was seen by the study's protagonists as unnecessary and intrusive (p. 83). 3 The unethical nature of the study was exposed in the midst of the Peace Movement, Black Power Movement, and students' unrest on college and university campuses across the USA. The

Can we right the wrongs of the past?

“…You may recall that, in the last Editorial, 1 there was reflection on suffering caused by those who initiated and continued the United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study (USPHSSS) at Tuskegee, even when antibiotic treatment became available. The annual conference at the National Centre for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University, 2 brought together scholars who shared their insights regarding this and some of the many other injustices inflicted on Black people in the southern states.…”