syphilis

Eight years earlier, the Texas Medical Board found that he had failed to diagnose appendicitis in one patient and syphilis in another.

This could be in part because medical institutions have a long and fraught history of exploiting Black bodies to “advance” science, from the Tuskegee syphilis study to the doctor who was once known as the “Father of Gynecology” practicing experimental medical procedures on enslaved Black women.

The collected blood is tested for diseases such as hepatitis, HIV and syphilis, as well as malaria if the donor has been somewhere they may have been exposed to the virus.

If a patient has a reportable sexually transmitted infection such as syphilis or HIV, that diagnosis must be shared with a public health department, along with the names of the patient’s past partners so they can be informed and get tested, Klitzman said.

He delves into the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiments on Black men in the 20th century, the abuses against intellectually disabled children at the Willowbrook State School in the early 1970s, and four other shocking cases that reveal not just a stunning failure of ethics but a coordinated determination to silence and discredit the individuals challenging them.