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How Racism Affected Medical Treatment In The 1950s

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How Racism Affected Medical Treatment Introduction Medical treatment in the 1950s was not the honest and fair practice it is today. The way in which African Americans we treated for their illnesses, if treated at all, the treatments would be extended over an unneeded amount of time or the treatment wouldn’t even be treatment. It would worsen the illness or have no effect. Today the medial field is much more equal and have more rules to prevent discrimination. A main change that has occurred is that now the doctors can not refuse to treat African Americans. Racism Proven In the years 1932 to 1972 the U.S. public health service conducted an experiment on 399 black men with the early stages of syphilis. From this study the PHS concluded that these men had no idea that they had the disease. The study showed told that they were being treated for “bad blood” disease and that the treatment was not only right but that it was prolonging the disease. With some of the …show more content…

In 1966 about 41% of African Americans were below the poverty line. This affected the black community because if they needed treatment for a disease they would not be able to obtain it since they could not afford medical bills or they could not afford the medicines or surgeries that they need to overcome the illness that they have. Some doctors would realize that they would not be able to afford the things so they would shorten the treatment or not even treat them at all since they could not afford it. The doctors would prolong medical treatment and nto give the treatment that was needed to successfully help. The only interest to these doctors with colored patients was the money that they would give to get help. These doctors gave some black patients something called “bad blood” or blood that was infected with disease. This made most if not all patients conditions worse. This was done at Tuskegee

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