Although the Thirteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment outlawed slavery and ensured racial equality, this practice of using African Americans for anatomy continued. By banning discrimination, the congress endeavored to protect the rights of the freedmen. However, the “freed slaves dealt with a fluctuation of liberty and oppression through [these] laws.” African Americans still faced many difficulties in the medical industry, and they intensified as Jim Crow laws gained popularity. Segregated hospitals implemented the “separate but equal” clause that prevailed in society. The thirteenth amendment and the fourteenth amendment coexisting with the Jim Crow laws represented the hidden sentiments that blacks and whites were not equal. …show more content…
The USPS did not inform the participants about the reality of the experiment, and the subjects believed that they were treated for “bad blood,” another term for syphilis. Difficulties arose in finding the subjects to participate in the experiment because the overall rate of syphilis was below the expected thirty five percent. The subjects only agreed to participate because the physicians promised them free care, but the Tuskegee Study was not about treatment since USPHS did not test any new drugs nor improve the efficacy of the old treatment. It was aimed at collecting data on the evolution of syphilis at different stages on black males. Physicians performed a series of tests and medical examination on the subjects and called for blood testing intermittently to supplement the information from clinical examinations. As some of the patients died due to the lack of treatment, physicians performed autopsy to confirm the disease process. According to Dr. Oliver C. Wenger, she said that “we have no further interest in these patients until they [died].” Rather than viewing their patients as actual patients, doctors like Wenger viewed them as objects for observation, and they lost their value when they died. In order to have a correct understanding of syphilis’ development, the USPHS ensured that the subjects did not receive treatment from other sources. This inhumane experiment lasted for fifty years until the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific affairs appointed an Ad Hoc Advisory Panel to review the study. Soon, it was revealed to the public that the victims did not receive adequate information to provide informed consent. The Panel also discovered that researchers did not offer the victims treatment even when penicillin became the cure for syphilis in 1947. The doctors