# tuskeegee experiment **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuskeegee-experiment/279874 "2004-12-14T23:19:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![priapus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@priapus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/priapus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuskeegee-experiment/279874/1 "2004-12-14T23:19:58Z")
Did the wives or children of the victims of the infamous Tuskeegee experiment exhibit symptoms of syphillis? How coulld the government avoid treating them,as they didn’t sign any agreement to participate? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tuskeegee-experiment/279874/2 "2005-07-18T03:23:09Z")
[http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/](http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/) > [@](#): > > By then, dozens of the men had died, and many wives and children had been infected. In 1973, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a class-action lawsuit. A $9 million settlement was divided among the study’s participants. Free health care was given to the men who were still living, and to infected wives, widows and children. As for your second question, I have no answer. Even simple racism doesn’t properly answer it. I doubt you’ll find an answer on the Internet. Perhaps you should consider reading one of the books on the subject, to get a fuller understanding of the slow change from the original short-term intent of the experiment to the decades-long wrong that it became.