Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present.Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington Doubleday, December 2006 $27.95, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-385-50993-0 For years, accessing the medical establishment has made blacks feel, well, ill at ease. Now comes a well-researched text by a former award-winning health reporter, who reveals why: The roots of established medicine has fueled the black American health deficit and for decades has sparked blacks' paranoia toward the health-care system. As she weaves history, science and culture, Washington takes complex information and makes it reader-friendly. Her text traces the abuse, examines the pseudoscience pseu·do·sci·ence n. A theory, methodology, or practice that is considered to be without scientific foundation. pseu used to exploit prisoners and black women and outlays how race and technology prey on black Americans today. Her writing so pinpoint, she brings literary drama to describing how diseases vex the human body. Her narratives so crisp, she brings to wrenching life the abuse of blacks by the establishment. For example, there's J. Marion Sims J. Marion Sims, born James Marion Sims (January 25, 1813 – November 13, 1883) was a surgical pioneer and considered the father of American gynecology. , the first man credited with founding a hospital for women in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . The backstory back·sto·ry n. 1. The experiences of a character or the circumstances of an event that occur before the action or narrative of a literary, cinematic, or dramatic work: : his breakthrough in fistula fistula (fĭs`ch  lə), abnormal, usually ulcerous channellike formation between two internal organs or between an internal organ and the skin. treatment came out of his brutal research on enslaved Enslaved may refer to:
Washington also reveals that blacks were used in teaching hospitals for amputations and other procedures and were seen as nothing more than bodies for clinical demonstrations. Her best chapter comes as she revisits the syphilis experiment the United States Public Health Service United States Public Health Service (USPHS), n.pr a major division of the Department of Health and Human Services. The USPHS provides oversight of the following agencies: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Food and Drug Administration performed in Tuskegee. With it, she exposes one of the most damaging encounters between blacks in the 20th century and the modern medical establishment. No, the health service did not give blacks syphilis, but the psychological fallout of the misguided experiment continues to taint African American views of medicine. At times, she lapses into preachiness. Her judgments on Eunice Rivers, the black nurse who was paid to shepherd the black men to hospitals during the Tuskegee experiment, seem unnecessarily harsh. At times, some of the medical references seemed written for an audience of health-care professionals, but these are small flaws. Problems between blacks and the medical establishment continue: there is the erosion of medical consent and the exportation of medical experimentation on Africa's poor. Washington acknowledges the problems but gives few clues on how the average citizen can guard against them. --Reviewed by Ervin Dyer Ervin Dyer is a Pittsburgh reporter who covers black health and culture. |
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