Medical Apartheid
by
John C Abercrombie
Medical procedures are one aspect that most people don’t even think of as being based on race, except if you are the victim. You hear about problems, such as the Tuskegee Experiment or Henrietta Lacks. Seldom is the likes of Dr James Marion Sims discussed, but he was not by himself in his treatment of Blacks.
The Tuskegee Experiment involved a large scale dishonest deception of Black men suffering from syphilis, a disease that can be fatal. The largest source of participants was scientifically located. The men were told they were being treated but were given placebo’s (fake medicine). Even when it was discovered that penicillin was effective in curing the disease, it was withheld from these vulnerable men. .
There are 4 stages of the disease with the final being painful and leading to death. Despite a cure, these men were allowed to suffer from 1932 to 1972 when the experiment was terminated, and it was too late for most of the men who survived up to this point.
There were at 2 men who warned of the unethical practices, but they were ignored, until one of them went to the media. Publicity caused an uproar of the unethical treatment of these men and finally termination of experimenting on living humans who were deceived into thinking they were being treated.
Dr. James Marion Sims was so cruel that he could be called a sadist. He operated on women, painful surgeries without the use of any anesthesia. The women had to be held down by his assistants who found the practice so revolting that they left the practice. Then other slave women had to hold down the patient. He was performing painful gynecological surgeries. Although there were obvious signs of pain, Sims claims that Black people were incapable of feeling pain or grieving.
While most people realize that Black people can feel pain and indeed grieve, it was necessary to make them seem subhuman to justify the treatment that they were subjected to during slavery. That philosophy continued after slavery in the form of Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws.
Sims even removed the jaw of one man again without benefit of anesthesia. Imagine the pain he must have suffered.
There were even experiments where entire neighborhoods were subjected to the release of millions of disease carrying mosquitoes to study how they spread disease. Dr. Sims was by no means the only doctor who performed unethical practices, but most don’t have a statue of them in Central Park, in New York City either.
Henrietta Lacks had cells taken from her that were used in experiments conducted around the world and even in outer space. She was never advised and despite the fact that many people profited handsomely from the sale of these cells, Henrietta, nor her family got one red cent. Not even recognition. All without her permission.
In other experiments, young boys had parts of their brains removed. There is much mystery surrounding these experiments, including what was being studies.
So many women were sterilized (removal of womb and/or ovaries) rendering them unable to have children that they were referred to as Mississippi Appendectomies.
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One to One:
Harriet A. Washington, author, Medical Apartheid Journalist Sheryl McCarthy talks with newsmakers about their sources of inspiration. She has private conversations about public affairs issues with the people who report on them and those who ARE the story. The subjects range from global warming issues to domestic ones.
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Medical Books
Not just for doctors and nurses. There is a great deal of information on medical topics. No one knows it all. If you have a condition, it is better when you can ask informed questions to ensure that all aspects of the topic are covered. It relieves stress when you know what is going on. The place to start is here with our Amazon affiliate link
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Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions.
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Computers and Technology
Demystify the world of computers and combine it with medical knowledge and you can write your own ticket. Advance are coming at us at a faster rate and there is no reason you should be left out of the equation. Start your journey with out Amazon affiliate link below
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Harriet Washington, “Medical Apartheid” author interview .
On August 19, 2019 we caught up with Harriet Washington, Lecturer in Bioethics at Columbia University and author of “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,” before her lecture, “History, Ethics and Contemporary Medical Abuses.” Here is a short interview with her discussing a range of topics related to the historical roots of bias and abuse in modern healthcare toward African Americans.
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Education and Teaching
Avoid questionable practices by learning how to educate yourself. Teachers are always looking for ways to improve the experience, the place to start is here with the link below
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Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing In the 16th century,
the beginning of African enslavement in the Americas until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and emancipation in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, isn’t it likely that many of the enslaved were severely traumatized? And did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the ab
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Health Fitness and Dieting
Health and fitness are essential to your wellbeing. Dieting is more than weight loss. The source for exploring and mastering your health starts here. Use our Amazon affiliate link below
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On Point with Harriet Washington GTN Exclusive
Harriet Washington, author of Medical Apartheid, is one of the world’s foremost experts on medical ethics and history. Following NPR’s shocking expose of chemical weapon testing on American soldiers based on race, Harriet provides little-known historical context by exploring questions like: How are acts like this allowed to occur? Can they happen again? Will there be justice?
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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as “brave and bold,” this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a “call to action.”
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The US medical system is still haunted by slavery
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Vitamins and Dietary Supplements
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A Terrible Thing to Waste:
Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind A “powerful and indispensable” (Gerald Markowitz) look at the devastating consequences of environmental racism — and what we can do to remedy its toxic effects on marginalized communities.
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Health Care
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DN! Medical Apartheid Medical
scholar Harriet Washington joins us to talk about her new book, “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.” The book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and the roots of the African American health deficit. It also examines less well-known abuses and looks at unethical practices and mistreatment of blacks that are still taking place in the medical establishment today.
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Medical Supplies and Equipment
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Bad Blood:
Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service conducted a non-therapeutic experiment involving over 400 black male sharecroppers infected with syphilis. The Tuskegee Study had nothing to do with treatment. Its purpose was to trace the spontaneous evolution of the disease in order to learn how syphilis affected black subjects.
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Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment – Syphilis Explained
The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, syphilis explained. Do you know which disease was discovered in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue? Do you know what illness the American gangster Al Capone and the ruthless dictator Adolf Hitler had in common? And do you know which disease was studied in one of the most amoral, deplorable, unethical studies in the history of the United States? Syphilis.
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Personal Care
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The Tuskegee Syphilis Study:
An Insiders’ Account of the Shocking Medical Experiment Conducted by Government Doctors Against African American Men In 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service recruited 623 African American men from Macon County, Alabama, for a study of “the effects of untreated syphilis in the Negro male.” For the next 40 years―even after the development of penicillin, the cure for syphilis―these men were denied medical care for this potentially fatal disease. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was exposed in 1972, and in 1975 the government settled a lawsuit but stopped short of admitting wrongdoing.
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Vision Care
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Henrietta Lacks, the Tuskegee Experiment, & Ethical Data Collection: Crash Course Statistics #12
Today we’re going to talk about ethical data collection. From the Tuskegee syphilis experiments and Henrietta Lacks’ HeLa cells to the horrifying experiments performed at Nazi concentration camps, many strides have been made from Institutional Review Boards (or IRBs) to the Nuremberg Code to guarantee voluntariness, informed consent, and beneficence in modern statistical gathering. But as we’ll discuss, with the complexities of research in the digital age many new ethical questions arise.
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Entertainment Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • Financial Times • New York • Independent (U.K.) • Times (U.K.) • Publishers Weekly • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Globe and Mail
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Wellness and Relaxation
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The Plutonium Files:
America’s Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War When the vast wartime factories of the Manhattan Project began producing plutonium in quantities never before seen on earth, scientists working on the top-secret bomb-building program grew apprehensive. Fearful that plutonium might cause a cancer epidemic among workers and desperate to learn more about what it could do to the human body, the Manhattan Project’s medical doctors embarked upon an experiment in which eighteen unsuspecting patients in hospital wards throughout the country were secretly injected with the cancer-causing substance. Most of these patients would go to their graves without ever knowing what had been done to them.
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Many don’t understand the skepticism of the medical community when it comes to the tretment of Blacks particularly in America. In addition to the failure to treat even in the event of accident and serious injury. eg Blacks were denied admittance or treatment fron White hospitals, ambulance service and the like. We see here many experiments that were evil, using people inan inhumane manner. eSubjecting them to !