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The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, or the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, was a United States Public Health Service (USPHS) study that ran from 1932-1972. This study was less of an experiment and more of an observation, or “study in nature,” on the course of untreated, latent syphilis in Black men. This study is highly controversial—and not just based on historical hindsight.

====Who was studied during the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment?====

In total, about 600 Black men were enrolled in this study. About 400 of them had syphilis, and the remaining 200 were the non-syphilitic control group. When a member of the control group contracted syphilis, they were moved from the control group to the experimental group. Macon County, Alabama, was selected as the site for this study due to findings from an earlier 1929 study backed by the Julius Rosenwald Fund on “the prevalence of syphilis” among Black men. According to this study, Macon County—of which Tuskegee's city is the county seat—had “the highest syphilis rate of the six counties surveyed.”<ref>Allan M. Brandt, "Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study," The Hastings Center Report, vol. 8, no. 6 (1978): 21-29, p. 22.</ref>