Tuskegee syphilis study not America's only medical scandal: Chester M. Southam, MD, Henrietta Lacks, and the Sloan-Kettering research scandal

Abstract

The words "human medical experimentation" conjure up visions of Nazi medicine, which has come to exemplify the worst evils in the history of humankind. Places like Auschwitz and Dachau, where human life was cheap and test subjects plentiful were used as laboratories. In 2010 the US government apologized to Guatemala for allowing U.S. doctors to infect Guatemalan prisoners and mental patients with syphilis 65 years earlier, while acknowledging dozens of similar experiments were performed in the United States. Among these included studies that often involved making healthy people sick or keeping sick patients ill, such as in the Tuskegee syphilis study. These experiments were often life threatening and took place with the direct approval and/or supervision of some of the country's most prestigious research institutions and some of the country's leading medical researchers. Among these was the prestigious cancer research center in New York City, Sloan Kettering Hospital and its director of cancer research Chester Southam, MD.

Toward Inclusivity in Preclinical Drug Development: A Proposition to Start with Intestinal Organoids

“…Accessing underrepresented patient groups who have been historically abused or manipulated by the medical community is particularly challenging. [46] More effort must be invested in patient education to increase trust and improve diverse participation in research. [1] Beyond acquisition of tissue and organoids, researchers must have access to demographic data (age, sex, race, genetic ancestry, socioeconomic status, etc.)…”