In 1932, the federal government began using poor Black men in the South to study the effects of syphilis. At the time, the men in the study were told they were being treated for bad blood -- but not all of them were. This study went on for four decades.
50 years ago, a reporter from the Associated Press broke the story of the Tuskegee experiments. Jean Heller had found reports of the studies that were going on in Alabama involving poor Black farmers. At first, she was told not to worry about it.
But in July of 1972, Heller's story was published, and schocked the public. Four months later, the Tuskegee syphilis study ended.
Listen to the story of the reporter who started it all.
