Medical apartheid: The dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present

A new report by the American Cancer society shows that African-Americans are still more likely than any other group to develop and die of cancer. The study states that socio-economic factors play the largest role in this disparity–African Americans have less access to health care and information, and are less likely to get screening and medical treatment. Well, a new book offers one answer into why black Americans deeply mistrust American medicine.

“Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present” is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation, abuse and neglect of African Americans. The book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and the roots of the African American health deficit. It begins with the earliest encounters of blacks and the medical establishment during slavery, looks at how eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify medical experiments conducted by the government and the military–and offers new details about the infamous Tuskegee Experiments that began in the 1930’s.

“Medical Apartheid” 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. With us now is the Author of the book–Harriet Washington. She is a medical writer and editor—and a visiting Scholar at DePaul University School of Law.

* Harriet Washington. Medical writer and editor. She is a visiting Scholar at DePaul University School of Law. Previously she was a Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard Medical School and at Stanford University. She is the author of the new book, “Medical Apartheid.”

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by the author of the book, Harriet Washington, a medical writer and editor, a visiting scholar at DePaul University School of Law. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

HARRIET WASHINGTON: Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, this is a fascinating book. First of all, why did you take it on?

HARRIET WASHINGTON: I took it on for two reasons: one, I’m a very naturally curious person, and when I was still in premedical undergraduate at the University of Rochester, I was working in a hospital and came across some case files that dramatically showed a disparity, a racial disparity, in people who were slated to receive kidneys, and that piqued my curiosity.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?

HARRIET WASHINGTON: Well, I came across some old case files in a forgotten file folder, and one was of a black gentleman, one was of a white gentleman.

The white gentleman’s file was thick and full of testaments to his loving family, his insurance support, his determination to live and detailed really Herculean attempt on the part of medical personnel to procure a kidney for him, kidney transportation still being relatively new then.

The file of the black gentleman was very thin. The word “Negro” appeared on every page of it, and somebody had underlined it on a social profile, right above the single line that indicated that the medical staff’s plans for him were to help him to prepare for his imminent demise.

The white gentleman and the black gentleman were very similar in their profiles, but they were treated differently, and I wanted to know whether this was a consistent feature of medical care or just an anomaly. And as I began looking into it, I just became intrigued in the vast differences in the way African Americans were used in research.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, your book doesn’t just deal with modern times, but you go back into the—to actually the beginning of the country—

HARRIET WASHINGTON: Absolutely.

JUAN GONZALEZ:—and exactly how these kinds of disparities began to manifest themselves. Could you talk to us a little bit about—especially about those early years, especially during the period of slavery?

HARRIET WASHINGTON: Right, the early years, it was quite chilling. First of all, it’s important to understand that there was a scientific animus called “scientific racism,” which at that time was simply science, and it posited that black people were very, very different from whites, medically and biologically. And this provided a rationale and an underpinning not only for the institution of slavery—slavery probably could not have persisted if there hadn’t been this medical underpinning—but also for the use of blacks in research.

For example, it said that blacks were less intelligent, sub-human, perhaps not even quite human, that they didn’t experience pain, that they were immune to diseases like malaria and heat sickness that made it impossible for whites to work in the field, but made them perfect for labor in the field. So this set of beliefs, this set of scientific beliefs, was not buttressed by any real data, but only by the needs of the community. And this actually gave permission for doctors to acquire slaves for research.

They also had a variety of conditions for which—a good example is reproductive health. All of the early important reproductive health advances were devised by perfecting experiment on black women. Why? Because white women could say no. White women were not interested in having doctors looking at their genitalia during the Victorian era, and white women were not interested in undergoing painful surgery without anesthesia, but black women could not say no

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