Medicine's Dark History

The U.S. Public Health Service deliberately withheld treatment from 600 Black men—399 with syphilis, 201 controls—to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis.

This wasn't 400 years ago. This ended in 1972—barely 50 years ago.

Over 60,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized under state eugenics laws targeting the "feebleminded," poor, disabled, epileptic, and racial minorities.

California led the nation with approximately 20,000 forced sterilizations.

The American eugenics movement directly inspired Nazi Germany's sterilization program.

Medical journals published papers justifying these procedures. Doctors performed them willingly. The establishment defended it as "scientific progress."

Some states continued forced sterilizations into the 1970s. The last documented coerced sterilization lawsuit was settled in the 2010s.

The U.S. Public Health Service deliberately infected 1,300 Guatemalans—prisoners, soldiers, mental patients, sex workers—with syphilis and gonorrhea without consent.

They infected people to study disease progression and treatment.

Read that again: American doctors deliberately infected over a thousand people with venereal disease.

This wasn't revealed until 2010. The U.S. government officially apologized in 2010—62 years after the experiments ended.

The U.S. government conducted experiments injecting citizens with plutonium and other radioactive materials without informed consent.

Researchers wanted to understand radiation effects for nuclear weapons development. They needed human subjects. So they used Americans without telling them.

This continued for 30 years.

In the 1840s, Sims performed experimental gynecological surgeries on enslaved Black women without anesthesia.

His justification? Black women didn't feel pain the same way white women did.

He developed surgical techniques on enslaved bodies, then used those techniques on white women—with anesthesia.

He is still celebrated as the "Father of Modern Gynecology." His statue stood in New York's Central Park until 2018.

Doctors took cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman, without consent.

Her cells (HeLa cells) became one of the most important tools in medical research, generating billions in medical advances and pharmaceutical profits.

Her family remained unaware for decades. They received nothing.

When they finally learned, they couldn't afford healthcare for themselves—while their mother's cells were generating fortunes.

Japanese military doctors conducted biological warfare experiments on thousands of Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Allied prisoners:

Estimated death toll: 200,000-300,000 people.

Medical experimentation on colonized populations without consent throughout the British Empire, including:

• Sleep deprivation experiments in Kenya
• Forced drug trials in India and Africa
• Deliberate withholding of treatment to study disease progression

Indigenous children in residential schools were subjected to:

• Nutritional deprivation experiments (deliberately malnourishing children to study effects)
• Denial of medical care as part of "research"
• Tuberculosis experiments

These were government-sponsored programs run by doctors.

New York researchers deliberately infected intellectually disabled children with hepatitis to study disease progression.

Parents were told their children would receive better care if they participated. They didn't know "participation" meant deliberate infection.

This happened in New York. Within living memory.

During apartheid, South Africa developed biological and chemical weapons specifically targeting Black populations:

• Covert sterilization programs
• Poison distribution in Black communities
• Development of race-specific bioweapons

Medical doctors led this program.

The project ended in 1995—barely 30 years ago.