Racism is entrenched in the history of research ethics

Today, in the process of learning about the history of research ethics I came across the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. From 1931 to 1972, 399 men with syphilis and 201 men uninfected by it were enrolled in a study to see the “natural history of untreated syphilis”. All of them were black men. None of them were told what the study was and its implications. When penicillin became widespread as a treatment, it was actively kept from them (researchers even called local physicians to ask them NOT to give them treatment). For over 40 YEARS. An apology was issued only in 1997 by Clinton. The researchers offered to pay for the funerals of the men who passed away in the study with a “simple”(/s) caveat: they get to perform an autopsy on the bodies. This was obviously not informed to their families.

Link to a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afwK2CVpc9E&pp=ygUXdHVza2VnZWUgc3lwaGlsaXMgc3R1ZHk%3D

Apparently, it doesn’t stop there. In 2011, researchers working for the US government in Guatemala intentionally exposed prisoners, patients and soldiers to syphilis to test the efficacy of penicillin. The subjects were majorly people of colour.

Paper on the Guatemala atrocity: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3828982/

We know how it is now but this is immensely infuriating. Why do legal protections emerge from the blood of people of colour?