Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 463 - The Tuskegee Study (Secret, Deadly Medical Testing on American Citizens)

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

From 1932 to 1972, six hundred poor, black sharecroppers in Alabama were told they were being treated for "bad blood," when in reality, the US government was conducting an experiment on how untreated syphilis affected their bodies, a study that was supposed to keep going until every participant was dead. A study that would've kept going, had a whistleblower not exposed it. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

In 1876, Dr. James Marion Sims, the father of gynecology, then president of the American Medical Association, called syphilis a terrible scourge, which begins with lamb-like mildness and ends with lion-like rage that ruthlessly destroys everything in its way. Syphilis was once a death sentence for many who were infected, and physicians from the 15th to the 19th centuries in the West struggled to understand its cause and treatment. Indigenous doctors in the Americas previously did their best with folk medicines used, quite likely, for centuries before the arrival of European colonizers. The affliction is thought by most to have been unknown outside the Americas prior to the 15th century.

Most experts currently believe that Christopher Columbus and his crew brought the STI back to Europe following their initial voyages west. Finally, in the early 20th century, some massive advancements in medicine led to a cure. For many years leading up to it, there have been treatments that may have lessened the symptoms for some but also made the affliction definitely worse for many others. But then in 1928, a scientist in London named Alexander Fleming made a curious and incredible discovery. He returned to his lab after a month away and saw that one of his bacteria samples 1928 a scientist in London named Alexander Fleming made a curious and incredible discovery He returned to his lab after a month away and saw that one of his bacteria samples had mold on it and much more importantly

That the bacteria around that mold had been destroyed This was the beginning of the journey to creating the game-changing antibiotic of penicillin Fleming tried to extract penicillin from the penicillium mold, but was unsuccessful. It would take several more years before some others developed a usable antibiotic. Meanwhile, across the pond in the US, a study had begun in rural Alabama in 1932. Signs were posted that read, Free blood test, free treatment by County Health Department and government doctors. You may feel well and still have bad blood. Come and bring all your family.

Hundreds of black men in Macon County, Alabama were recruited for this new study. They were only told they had the fictitious illness of bad blood, not syphilis. They were not told the true purpose of the study, which was to monitor them and not treat them until they died and then to analyze their remains in an autopsy. The Tuskegee study ran for some 40 years from 1932 all the way to 1972, decades after penicillin had become the cheap readily available treatment of choice for syphilis. Finally, United States Public Health Service employee learned about this still ongoing study and brought it up to his superiors in the mid-1960s and they flat-out did not give a shit and ignored his concerns. about this still ongoing study and brought it up to his superiors in the mid-1960s and

they flat out did not give a shit and ignored his concerns. He was deeply disturbed by how unethical this study was, finally told an Associated Press reporter about it. Then she shared the story with the coworker, Jean Heller, a reporter in their special assignments division, who then researched the study and published an article that led to national outrage. And finally, to the end of this inhumane study. A subsequent investigation revealed just how many ethical violations the researchers had committed

and it revealed just how they had let study participants needlessly suffer for decades without treatment, suffer and in some cases die. The Tuskegee study is a horrifying example of unethical human research in the US, a nation that had been horrified by tales of Nazi and Japanese human medical experimentation not long after the study began. And yet, they kept it going. To this day, it serves as a reminder of the importance of protections for human study participants, and it illustrates the importance of building and not breaking trust between the scientific and medical communities and the general public. In today's conspiratorial, distrustful of expertise social climate, that trust more important than it has been in a long, long time.

Today I'll share information about the disease syphilis, talk about how you and your mom and definitely your dad probably have it, I'll talk about the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin, trends on the disease in the US, and then we'll examine the study from beginning to end and its effects on survivors in today's historical dark chapter in US history. Reminder to not forget the past so we can, if not never, repeat it. At least recognize it when we see it edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to time suck Well, happy Monday and welcome or welcome back to the cold to the, Master Sucker, guy with more nicknames than most Murder Incorporated hitmen, and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lusifena,

Lusifena, what? Hail Lusifena, praise me to good boy Bojangles and glory be to Triple M. My heart goes out to all those suffering in Texas with the recent floods and also all those still suffering in Ukraine, all those still suffering in Texas with the recent floods and also all those still suffering in Ukraine, all those still suffering in Gaza and anywhere else where there's currently a tragedy which has a lot of places. So if you're alive and healthy and not living in a war-torn country or haven't just lost anyone close to you, you're doing a lot better than most. Well, many. You're doing a lot better than many. I won't say most. So find a reason to smile, to laugh, go tell who

you love that you love them. Love you beautiful bastards listening. And now let's go face some sins of the past and learn how not to behave. Lucifina demands it. Starting off today with the bang. Just going gonna start right away talking about your dad, why he has syphilis, and what he needs to do about it. He has syphilis because your dad is a hedonistic dirtbag with an undeveloped brain that doesn't properly factor in consequences for his reckless, impulsive, self-destructive actions and he will fuck anything that moves. What he needs to do about it is slam his filthy fucking dick in the closest,

heaviest door he can find, and if he lives through the severing blood loss, abandon you and your family and join a monastery. Now that that has been sufficiently addressed, next I'll share some stats on syphilis in both the US and abroad. After that, we'll talk about syphilis, what it is, how it spreads, its symptoms, and prevention, and I'll share info on some related infections as well. We're talking about a lot of stuff you probably have, but don't realize yet. Then we'll talk about the recorded history of the infection, including origin theories, early documented cases, and some very shitty treatments worse than the affliction. Finally, we'll talk about the discovery of penicillin, followed by

a full timeline of the Tuskegee study and its survivors. And here we go. How common are sexual bacterial infections? More common than I thought, actually. In April of 2021, the CDC released a report on 2019 STI data which showed that for the six year in a row, cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis were at an all-time high. Holy shit. That surprises me because recent studies have shown that people are having less sex than they used to have. Apparently some of those who are

having sex are not wrapping up and are really mashing their fun parts in sweaty bacteria sharing thigh shuddering delight. Hail, Lusifena. As I previewed, I'll explain what syphilis is in a bit since that's what we're focusing on today. For right now, let me briefly explain what gonorrhea and chlamydia are before moving forward. They're similar. Gonorrhea, often referred to as the clap, which makes it sound a lot more fun than it is, is a bacterial STI and infection that can involve the mouth, rectum, or genitals. I'm 99% positive that your dad has it in his mouth.

While your mama, I'm pretty sure she has it on her rectum. Mm-hmm. And'm 99% positive that your dad has it in his mouth. While your mama, I'm pretty sure she has it on her rectum. Mm-hmm. And it's gonna stay that way. Because your dad's a dirty, dirty boy. He likes to feast on mama's bicycle seat. And she loves it. And I want you to picture that. I want you to picture a dog eating ice cream. But the dog is your dad. And the ice cream is your mom's butthole. Okay, good. That's good. We can move forward now. Symptoms generally first appear after infection in 2 to 14 days. Gonorrhea can be asymptomatic. But when symptoms occur, they may include painful urination, abnormal genital discharge, and in women bleeding between periods.

Other possible symptoms include a sore throat, rectal pain, or discharge, and in some cases joint pain or fever. For men, a common symptom is a burning sensation while you pee. And how fun is this? You can have a white, yellow or even green colored pus-like discharge leak out of your dick hole. So that's super sexy. And women can have this same infected sex juice dripping out of their front butts. That's hot! God, nothing gets me harder than talk of discolored genital discharge. Mmm. Hell is a fina I hear it tastes great like some delicious fro-yo on a hot summer's day I've never heard that no one's ever heard that I'm sure it's terrible

If you get it anally it can burn or otherwise hurt when you take a shit Probably when you fart too depending on how hard you're farting of course And that fun green mucousy sex juice can also drip out of your bad boy or bad girl bottom. Also guys can have their balls swell up. You can end up with two grapefruits hiding a dirty little smoky cocktail sausage. Looks like it has a nasty insinus infection and is just sneezed if you're not careful. Just ask your parents. Less common symptoms can include fever and chills if the infection has spread to other parts of your body, abdominal pain, mainly in women,

if the infection has spread to their internal bicycle gears, AKA reproductive organs, eye pain and discharge if the infection reaches your eyes, eye infections most common in babies, sadly, who've caught the STI from their mother during a vaginal birth, joint pain and swelling if the infection is spread to the joints, an increased urge to urinate in both men and women

and painful intercourse mainly with women. If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to serious complications like pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and ectopic pregnancy. It's almost never fatal but it can be if the infection say reaches your spinal cord or heart in rare instances. Also, will not go away on its own. You have to treat it with antibiotics. So used to be a real motherfucker. Chlamydia, also a bacterial infection, often sneakier than its cousin gonorrhea, it frequently has no noticeable symptoms. So you probably have it. And so does your mom. And again, she probably got it from

your dad and his dirty, dirty dingus. I'll stop talking about your parents. I probably won't. I'll stop for a little while. When symptoms do show up, they appear in one to three weeks. Just like with gonorrhea, chlamydia can leave you with a leaking stinkwein or an outhouse vagene as doctors like to call them. But generally the discharge is milky and not green. However, it can still smell real bad. You can again bleed in between periods or for women during sex. You can experience pain during sex. Primarily with women it can burn when you pee. It can also infect your anus and rectum. Your balls can swell. Which I guess you know probably would hurt during sex. Left untreated women like with gonorrhea. It can lead to infertility or an ectopic pregnancy. Very very similar symptoms.

It can also if it's infected your eyes, you know lead to blindness and it can lead to a form of arthritis. It's a lot of fun. Like with gonorrhea. It will not go away on its own. You need to treat with antibiotics. And now finally syphilis worse than its cousins gonorrhea and chlamydia. But before I describe the symptoms of this bacterial STI, another one, I will dig into some stats. Paul Romigara, acting director of the CDC's Division of STI Prevention, wrote in an announcement, or actually might be former now less than 20 years ago gonorrhea rates in the US were at historic lows syphilis was close to elimination and advances in chlamydia diagnostics made it easier to

detect infections that progress has been lost due in part to challenges to our public health system oh yeah there's been a lot of challenges lately damnit since 2015 there was a 20% increase in chlamydia, a 50% increase in gonorrhea, and a 70% increase of syphilis. These STIs made up 2.6 million cases in 2019 compared to 2.5 million in 2018. In 2019, 128 infants died from congenital syphilis. There were over 2,000 cases, a 279% increase since 2015, and that's just in the U.S. Black, Hispanic, Native American babies had the highest numbers of syphilis. This report also stated that over 55% of reported STI cases in 2019 occurred amongst adolescents

and young adults aged 15 to 24. 31% of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and primary and secondary syphilis cases occurred amongst non-Hispanic black individuals. Men who have had sex with men also disproportionately affected by syphilis. According to the report, the disparity most likely is not caused by differences in sexual behavior but rather reflect differential access to quality sexual health care as well as differences in sexual network characteristics. For example, in communities with higher prevalence of STIs, with each sexual encounter, people face a greater chance of encountering an infected partner than those in lower prevalence settings

do of course, regardless of similar sexual behavior patterns. Acknowledging inequities in STI rates is a critical first step towards empowering affected groups and the public health community to collaborate in addressing systemic inequities in the burden of disease. With the ultimate goal of minimizing the health impacts of STIs on individuals and populations. Very well written there. Yeah, if you live in a neighborhood, a low income, you live in a neighborhood with shitty health care and people having sex just like they do in the fucking country club neighborhood. Where they have a better education, better access to healthcare, you're going to have more STIs in the lower income neighborhood and people just having the same amounts of sexual partners, having sex in the same way are going to get a higher rate of infection.

It's not because one group is somehow morally less pure than another. At one point the CDC thought they could eliminate syphilis from the US, but now who the fuck knows? Former CDC director Tom, Dr. Tom Frieden, described a deadly cycle of panic and neglect. Emergency disease outbreaks make officials scramble to take action. A lot of funding will temporarily go into fighting the disease. We've seen that with like the Zika virus, Ebola, COVID. But then time passes, fear of the disease decreases. Politicians no longer see it as advantageous to fund it. The attention and motivation to treat eradicate the disease decreases. You know, some ways of the species, we just seem to quickly forget what we were just afraid of because now we're focused on some new shit.

In 2022, the CDC published an article titled National Overview of STIs 2020. This overview gave national surveillance data from 2020 on three notifiable diseases with federally funded control programs. And it's chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. The CDC writes the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced uncertainty and difficulty in interpreting STI surveillance data collected during 2020 and trends presented in sexually transmitted disease surveillance 2020 should be interpreted cautiously. 2020 there was a hundred and thirty three thousand nine hundred and forty four hundred forty five reported cases of all

stages of syphilis. I'll talk about the stages here soon. There were 41,655 cases of primary and secondary syphilis, the most infectious stages by far. Ever since reaching historic lows in 2000 and 2001, syphilis rates have increased almost every year. They increased 6.8% from 2019 to 2020 despite the pandemic. Rates increased amongst males and females in the Midwest, Northeast, and the South.

Syphilis rates increased in most racial slash Hispanic ethnicity groups, non-Hispanic American Indian slash Alaska Native, and non-Hispanic persons of multiple races saw the biggest increases. Since 2000, syphilis has increased amongst men, most likely because of the increase in cases among men who have sex with other men, aka MSM, where transmission is just easier. MSM accounted for 53% of all male syphilis cases in 2020. Syphilis rates are lower among women, but the rates increased 147% from 2016 to 2020, suggesting that the heterosexual syphilis epidemic continues to rapidly increase in the United States. In 2013, the rate of congenital syphilis was 9.2 out of every 100,000 live births. This was the first increase in congenital syphilis since 2008. Since 2013,

the congenital syphilis rate has increased every year. Preliminary 2021 data shows that there were 2.5 million reported cases of chlamydia gonorrhea and syphilis in the US that year. In 2021 there were 171,074 cases of syphilis compared to 2017 when there were 101,590 cases. These are all higher numbers than I expected. And this is not just a problem in the US. You know syphilis, other related bacterial infections, you know, it's still a global issue. Estimated that worldwide there were 7 million new syphilis infections in 2020 alone. Who the fuck did there was this much syphilis going around? The World Health Organization set a goal to reduce syphilis by 90% by 2030. Who writes, syphilis is preventable

and curable with cost effective and in, in certain contexts, cost-saving interventions. Easy-to-use and inexpensive point-of-care tests include blood-based rapid tests that produce results in less than 20 minutes and products that test syphilis and HIV using a single platform. Treatment with injectable penicillin is simple to administer and inexpensive. A major challenge is that populations at higher risk for syphilis, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, are often not able to access services due to structural barriers, including criminalization, policy and legal barriers, discrimination and violence. As recommended by WHO,

governments should address these structural barriers as a priority. Not sure how well the WHO's fight against STIs is currently going. I'm guessing not as well, because this April is part of the very, very wise Trump-backed Doge cuts heavy sarcasm. CDC lab dedicated to tracking STIs including drug-resistant gonorrhea was closed. Just a fucking knee-jerk closure for political reasons. It's one of the only like only three labs in the fucking world that track drug-resistant STIs. It was home to 50,000 unique gonorrhea isolates as well as tens of thousands of other samples. It was a lab that played a critical role in both national and global STI science.

But you know what? Fuck science, right? If you don't want an STI, just never have sex with anyone who wasn't also a virgin and be a good little sheep who always does whatever daddy tells you. Always follow the rules. Never have empathy for anyone else who doesn't. Right? Come on! That lab was reopened last month in early June when the scientists who had already been fired received a fucking email from a schizophrenic administration that essentially was like, oh hey guys, we fucked up! I know you probably have other jobs right now and shit and we ruined your fucking experiments but one of our fucking 19 year old dipshits who we put in charge of just firing people indiscriminately made a mistake and maybe the government should medically help its citizens

after all when it comes to very common infections. It's unclear currently how many scientists were able to resume their work. Dr. Joseph Cheruby, the medical director of the Washington University and St. Louis Prep Clinic, said in an interview regarding this fucking stupid lab closure and reopening, quote, the lab being reopened while welcome still erodes trust of the scientific community in this administration. For any scientists working in this lab, they know that at any point their job can be removed and reinstated at a whim by a complete fucking maniac. I added those last few words. The issue here is that this is not how science works. Science requires stability and continuity to foster

innovation. Yep. Tests take time to develop and cultures take time to grow. They all need the right scientific conditions in order to be able to do that. If you remove those conditions by shutting down a lab, then years of work can go down the drain. Yeah, yes, that's how it works. My god, the non-stop fucking chaos of the current White House is just not conducive to scientific progress. It just is not. If the entire world had a MAGA mindset and had one for the past century and change, there's no fucking way we would even have penicillin now.

Gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis would be 100% untreatable currently. Not kidding. Well, the second half of this suck illustrates how damaging scientists acting nefariously is. The first part of the suck is a great illustration of how truly important science is to so many, all of us, all of us who've ever relied on medicine. Now that we've established how common syphilis is and the increasing syphilis rates, let's talk about the disease itself. And if you don't think Magnus Kors is anti-science, by the way, oh boy. There are so many people who strongly disagree with you, like the world scientific community. And if you're wondering like, why is he saying this? Why is he? I hear these fucking, you know, things. Why is he getting political? Life is fucking political. Don't be a fucking crybaby. Seriously.

This podcast has been strongly pro-science since the very beginning, and if we're gonna have fucking politicians who now hate science, then I'm gonna say fuck those guys. Right? That would just be consistent with my beliefs. And if you don't find that doesn't make sense to you, then you really haven't been paying attention. Any anti-science political trend is gonna fucking annoy me to no end and it should annoy any rational person to no end. I don't know about you, I would like to live as long as possible and have the best quality of life possible and nothing is going to help me more in that regard than good scientists being funded able to do what they fucking do. So thank you scientists So sorry, you have to deal with such a fucking shit show right now Please stay strong. Please do not give up the people currently opposed to you the most They fucking need you more than they will ever realize and

Many of the other people like myself who support you have never had the amount of admiration and appreciation for you than we do right now Hail Nimrod now back to dirty dicks. Nasty front butts. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium. Oh my gosh. Oh science words. Trape Anema. This is why we also need scientists.

If I had a fucking pet scientist, that'd be awesome. I don't know. Fucking what would be a good pet scientist name? I'm going off my don't know, fucking, won't be a good pet scientist name. I'm going off my notes here. You know, I'm missing throughout Clifford. I don't know why. Clifford! And he was just like, and then he would just get on the mic and I'm like, fucking say that word goddammit! And he would. I mean, thank you very much Dr. Clifford. Like, okay, yeah, you bet. Anyway, syphilis. Sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium treponema pallidum.

I don't even fucking need you, Clifford. And according to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, quote, syphilis is pretty neat. It gets bum rap, but think about how folks tend to get it. Sucking tits while smashing bits, you know? From slapping butts and swinging nuts for real for real. It's like a whole vibe. Don't be letting some sores kill your aura.

Sleep on how much fun. Getting up in them guts, B, no cap. What? Feeling the CDC really trying to reach a wide range of ages with a wide range of slang with that message that I probably using it correctly. And of course that's not their message. Here's what the CDC actually said. Syphilis spreads from person to person by direct contact with a syphilitic sore known as a shanker. A shanker sounds fun it's not but sounds fun to me. Shakers can occur in on or around the penis vagina anus rectum lips or mouth syphilis can spread during vaginal anal or oral sex oh yeah don't think this because you're out there fucking giving blowjobs and keeping your hymen intact that you can't get some sif, okay?

Pregnant people with syphilis can also transmit the infection to their unborn child So you could definitely get it from doing some rusty tugboating which I've been clear for a while now is extremely dangerous You can't thankfully contract syphilis via casual contact with toilet seats, doorknobs, swimming pools, hot tubs, bathtubs, sharing clothing, eating utensils, high fives, fist bumps, line dancing, or things like that.

It usually takes 21 days for the first symptoms to appear after infection, but the accepted range is 10 to 90 days. As far as symptoms go, syphilis is called the great pretender because the symptoms are similar to many other diseases. There are four stages of syphilis. It's very complex, complicated. They can last, each stage can last weeks, months, even years. First is called primary syphilis. You just need one shanker to mark the start of primary syphilis, but there can be multiple sores as well. Shanker is usually but always, firm, round, and painless. It appears at the location where syphilis enters the body.

So please press pause right now, find a good mirror that you can look at privately. Take your clothes off in front of this mirror, face away from it. Bend over until you can look backwards between your legs. Spread your butt cheeks and really examine your butthole. fucking thoroughly. Don't half ass your ass. Do you have a painful round sore on it? Does it look like your brown eye has got a black eye or pink eye? Like your back door got kicked in by a fucking SWAT team. Put your finger in it. Feel around for how tender it is or is not. After a few minutes, no

more than five, take that finger out. Put it in your mouth. For science! You fucking chicken out! Don't be silly little bitch! Does your finger taste like a painful sore? That's it! Grow up!

Do what you need to do. Trying to fucking help you. You're just rolling your eyes or laughing or fighting nausea or turning off this podcast. But for real, this is the very first symptom. A shanker it's probably gonna be small usually range from a few millimeters to about a centimeter in diameter that'll be round or oval in shape it'll have firm and smooth texture it'll feel slightly hard to the touch frustratingly they are frequently mistaken for pimples or

ingrown hairs. The shanker can obviously pop up and difficult to see locations like the vagina or anus. It can last three to six weeks. It'll heal even if the person doesn't get treatment, which is tricky because if you do not get treatment at this stage, syphilis will progress to the secondary stage. Secondary syphilis, marked by skin rashes and or mucous membrane lesions defined as sores in the mouth, vagina or anus. Secondary syphilis usually starts with a fucking nasty rash on the body, sometimes a very big beyond obvious rash. Rashes can

appear while the chancre is still healing or after the chancre heals. The rash usually doesn't cause itching. According to the CDC it quote may appear as rough red or reddish brown spots on the palm of the hands and bottoms of the feet. However, rashes with a different appearance may occur on other parts of the body. Sometimes they resemble rashes caused by other diseases. The rashes might be so faint they're hardly noticeable, but also based on a horrifying unforgettable internet search they can be extremely noticeable. As in most of your body has broken out in a rash of just fucking biblical proportions. So many red circular blemishes that to me look

like how your skin looks like a week or so after a pimple or sebaceous cyst has been popped or lanced and the skin is no longer really raised. It just looks like kind of reddish and scar-like. Like imagine if you had like a thousand pimples all pop the same day and then how's your skin gonna look a week later and that's kind of like a syphilis rash. On darker skin tones it can appear very dark brown even white like dry flaky skin or scab but not always. It can also appear as a red on very dark skin tones. Large raised gray or white lesions called... Clifford get in here! Condylamma may also appear. These usually appear in warm moist areas like the mouth, underarms, and groin.

They can also look like warts or like a little circular red sore. They can actually no bullshit look like so many things that the more I looked around at pictures I started to think, have I had syphilis for most of my life? That's fun. Other syphilis symptoms are fever, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, patchy hair loss, Jesus Christ, headaches, weight loss, muscle aches, fatigue. All these symptoms will go away with or without treatment. Without treatment, syphilis will progress to the next sneaky third stage of the infection

called the latent stage. Latent stage also called the hidden stage because there's no visible signs or symptoms. Without treatment, syphilis will obviously stay in the body. There are kind of three but really two different portions of this third latent stage early and late latent syphilis. Early latent is latent syphilis when the infection has occurred within the past 12 months. Late latent is latent syphilis when the infection has occurred more than 12 months ago.

And latent syphilis of unknown duration is latent syphilis when there's not enough evidence to confirm that the initial infection happened within 12 months or not. And this latent stage can last for several years. And then finally, there's the fourth stage, tertiary syphilis. Tertiary syphilis can show up 10 to 30 fucking years after someone's gotten infected. Isn't that crazy? Just hide inside you for 10 to 30 years and it's like still not done motherfucker. The only good thing about this stage is that your STI is no longer contagious. The bad

thing about the stage is it can definitely kill you. Different organ systems can be affected such as the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones, and joints. Symptoms vary based on which organ system is affected. Depending on what's being attacked, it can be called neuro syphilis, ocular syphilis, or autosyphilis. Syphilis can invade the nervous system, visual system, or auditory slash vestibular system at any stage. Symptoms of neuro syphilis are severe headache, trouble with muscle movements, muscle weakness or even paralysis, numbness,

changes in mental status, trouble focusing, confusion, complete fucking personality change, dementia, problems with memory, thinking and or making decisions, symptoms of ocular syphilis, eye pain or redness, floating spots in the field of vision, sensitivity to light, changes in vision, blurry vision to blindness, finally symptoms of auto syphilis, hearing loss, ringing, buzzing, roaring or hissing in the ears, tinnitus, balance difficulties, dizziness or vertigo. What a nasty ass bacteria. Just very sneaky, very complex and insidious.

As mentioned previously, syphilis can spread to unborn babies. Not in that last stage, but in the first three. CDC recommends that all pregnant people get tested for syphilis during their first prenatal visits. Some may need testing again at 28 weeks and at delivery. People who need the second test are those who live in areas with high syphilis rates or people who are at risk of getting syphilis during pregnancy. According to the CDC, risk factors with high syphilis rates or people who are at risk of getting syphilis during pregnancy. According to the CDC, risk factors for contracting syphilis during pregnancy are Sex with multiple partners. Sex in conjunction with drug use or transactional sex.

Late entry to prenatal care. Sex with your dad or your mom. Methamphetamine or heroin use. Incarceration of the pregnant person or their partner or unstable housing or homelessness. Anyone who delivers a stillborn baby after 20 weeks should get tested for syphilis, untreated syphilis and pregnant people. This is very scary. Will lead to an infant death in about 40% of cases worldwide. Damn! A baby born with syphilis may not have symptoms but if they don't get treatment, they will likely have serious health issues, including developmental delays, seizures, and of course, death.

A healthcare provider should use penicillin therapy to treat syphilis unless of course there is an allergy. I am allergic to penicillin, so I guess if I have it, me and my dirty dick are just fucked. Penicillin treatment is 98% successful in preventing transmission. People who are allergic to penicillin should go to a specialist for desensitization to penicillin or you can just get alternatives that can successfully treat penicillin for those of us with dumb shitty stupid bodies. So how do you not get syphilis? Thoughts and prayers. Yeah,

they've done a lot of studies. Literally all it takes to never get syphilis? Thoughts and prayers. Yeah, they've done a lot of studies. Literally all it takes to never get syphilis or any other disease or ailment or character flaw is the right amount of thoughts and prayers. Yeah. Uh, no. Putting a helmet on when you ride a bike or insisting that someone else put a helmet on when they ride your bike, aka condom usage is the best way to reduce the odds, but unfortunately still a good chance to get it According to the CDC condoms when used correctly every time someone has sex can reduce the risk of getting or giving syphilis Condoms offer protection when the condom covers the infected area or site of potential exposure. However Syphilis transmission can occur with lesions not covered by a condom. God, who else has a just uncomfortable reaction to the word lesion? It's like it's not necessarily worse than a lot of other symptoms when

I hear like you know you could get lesions. I'm like, ugh, lesions? Anyway, the only way to completely avoid syphilis is to not have vaginal, anal, or oral sex. Another option is to be in a long-term, usually monogamous relationship with a partner who does not have syphilis, obviously. I would add that yet another option is to only have sex after covering your entire genital area in multiple layers of saran wrap. You just get a big old fucking roll and you just wrap it around and around and around and around and then you wrap up your partner's genitals around and around and around and

around just completely cover most of their body in saran wrap and then you just use so much lube and you just kind of have weird plasticky sex where you're so desensitized that you're not even really sure like if anything is going inside anywhere but maybe you still come. I don't know it could be fun. So where does syphilis come from besides your parents? Let's find out after our first of two Mitch O sponsor breaks. If you don't want to hear these ads please sign up to be a spacer on patreon. Get the catalog ad free. Get episodes sorry three days early and more. Thanks for listening to those ads and now let's find out where syphilis comes from. As I mentioned earlier, syphilis is caused by the

CLIFFORD! Tryponema pallidum, a type of spiral bacteria. And it didn't show up as far as we know in the western world until the end of the 15th century at the very earliest. Definitely in the western world at the beginning of the 16th century. Unlike most STIs, it's been frequently stigmatized, seen as a shameful disease. Right? Fuck you for having sex, Whore of Babylon!

Also, like most STIs, people have long looked to blame one particular group of meat sacks for the existence of this disease because we have long been tribalist morons in some respects, overly wary and judgey of outsiders for most of our recorded history. Pretty much all. There's a long history of countries suffering from syphilis outbreaks, blaming neighboring countries. You know, because their citizens are the best, the most pure and righteous, and other countries' peoples fucking suck, bro! Obviously. They were born in a different geographic area, and like, they look different. So, they're some type of monster. For example, Italians, Germans, and the English long called it the French disease.

And to be fair, the French are easily top three when it comes to the dirtiest, most horrible people on earth. The French called it the Neapolitan disease, referring to those dirty, dirty sub-human fucks from Naples, Italy. It's just spaghetti-fl flavored apes, really. The Russians called it the Polish disease, because the Polish, as I have warned you so many times, definitely not fully human, dumb fucking monsters

with bad hygiene and unpredictable temperaments. The Polish called it the German disease, which does make sense because all Germans are Nazis. Always have and always will be. That's why God hates them. They're evil, weird looking people people, and they smell funny. The Danish, Portuguese, and other residents of North Africa call it the Spanish Castilian disease, which is fair. Spaniards are fucking gross. Their noses are too sharp or something. Their skin's like...

It's always like too tan or not tan enough. You know what I mean? It's never just right. And they eat too many shrimp. Turkish people, named with the Christian disease, boom bullseye thank you that makes the most sense no one likes to ride a dirty bike like a Christian they'll fuck anything they're monsters and it's mostly their fault we have STIs seriously though we have long been such a ridiculous species when it comes to acting like somebody born on the other side of a mountain range or across the sea it's just oh they're just so different. In the early 1500s a Parisian named Jean Frenelius called syphilis a venereal pest. It's kind of a funny term. I feel like we should throw

that around just people don't like God you're such a venereal pest. Jean called this syphilis a venereal pest when he wrote about the disease in a treaty. Treatise? Maybe? The word syphilis was Veneuro Pest when he wrote about the disease in a treatise. The word syphilis was introduced by an Italian poet and medical personality named Giorlamo Focastoro. In 1530 he wrote an epic poem in Latin that sounds terrible called Syphilis Sivimorbis Galicus which means syphilis or the French disease about a fictional man named Syphilis. Syphilis was a Greek shepherd in charge of the flocks of King Alcinois and syphilis was angry with the god Apollo for drying up some trees and springs and he declared, you know what?

I'm not I'm not gonna worship anymore and Apollo didn't like that and he cursed him with some syphilis. Fucking dickhead. The disease didn't quickly spread to everyone including the king. Finally a nymph advised the people to make a sacrifice to Apollo to get him to show some mercy. And one of the sacrifices was the shepherd, Syphilis, himself. People made sacrifices to Juno and Telus as well. Telus offered them guayac, a brown resin derived from the guayacum tree, which is what Europeans first used to treat this disease, and it did not work. But they used it before they replaced it with mercury, which also didn't work and was worse

than syphilis. More syphilis patients treated with mercury are thought to have died from mercury poisoning rather than from syphilis. So where did this disease come from? Well, I said it probably originated in the Americas and that Christopher Columbus brought it to the Americas, and that is the leading theory, but it's not the only theory. There's also the pre-Columbian hypothesis. This hypothesis states that syphilis was bouncing around in both the old and the new world in the days before Columbus but that in Europe it was misdiagnosed as leprosy. There's also a similar disease called Pinta caused by the bacterium. Treponema carotidotam a very close relative of the syphilis causing bacteria. It's characterized by skin lesions, fucking

lesions again, that progress through various stages potentially leading to skin discoloration and in advanced cases disfiguring changes. Penta is currently primarily found in remote rural areas of Central and South America but it was showing up in the Afro-Asian zone by at least as early as 15,000 BCE. It's now fatal and can almost always be knocked out by a single dose of penicillin or other antibiotics. Treatment also makes it no longer contagious in only about 24 hours. It's not an STI. It's spread through close, prolonged non-sexual contact with the skin or mucous membranes of an infected person. About 12,000 years ago, sometime around 10,000

BC, another infection showed up in the syphilis family of bacteria. Yaws. YALLS came about as a mutation of penta and spread over the entire world excluding the American continent because of isolation. Yaws, also not an STI, spread through direct contact with the infection, infectious lesions of an infected person, usually through skin-to-skin contact. If you get it, you probably know, because a painless reddish or tan colored sword known as a mother yaw, that sounds like a fucking character on Hee Haw, that's mother yaw, appears at the site of the infection typically two to four weeks after exposure.

It's pretty nasty if you have the stomach to do an image search. The mother yaw often looks a bit raspberry-like, like a raspberry made out of infected meat, if that appeals to you. It's very itchy, highly contagious. Scratching it can spread the bacteria to other areas of the body and a bunch of secondary lesions will form. These sores may now last for months. The secondary sores typically appear shortly before or after that OG mother y'all heals. Eventually the skin sores heal but you can keep getting new outbreaks and in later stages lesions appear as wart-like or ulcer-like growths which may be raised bumpy red or yellow. Secondary lesions can be scaly and flat or hard and thick. In some cases bone pain and swelling particularly in the fingers but also in other bones or joints, can occur causing further

disfigurement. It can't kill you, but it can present very similarly to leprosy in terms of severe disfigurement. Like Pinta, it's very treatable. A single dose of erythromycin is the most effective antibiotic when it comes to knocking this one out. Good old Z-Pak! Whiskey, laudum, sal, Z-Pak! If you know, you know that reference. Then about 9,000 years ago, around 7,000 BCE, Yaas created endemic syphilis as the bacteria just continued to mutate. Penta and Yaas, both still around by the way, they just have more cousins and friends now. Just further fucking up humanity. Diseases and infections, very fun that way.

They show up, they're nasty, then they mutate, create nasty friends, while also not going away themselves. Endemic syphilis, also known as beigel, is a non-venereal form of syphilis. Again, not transmitted through sexual contact. Spread through mostly high fives, fist bumps, and hugs. Well, maybe not, but kind of. Typically spread through direct contact with skin lesions or through the sharing of utensils randomly

with somebody who is infected. It affects children primarily for some reason, probably because, not joking, they're more apt to put a dirty spoon in their mouth than an adult, more likely to not wash snot off their nose, face, hands, et cetera, than touch another little kid's dirty face with their dirty hands.

Little kids are like feral animals. This disease typically starts with a lesion in the mouth or on some other part of the mucosa, this big membrane that lines various cavities in the body of an organism and covers the surface of internal organs. You can see this membrane externally at body openings like the eyes, eyelids, ears, inside the nose, inside the mouth, lips, the genital areas, the urethral opening, the anus. Looks like an ulcer or a cancer sore or excuse me, canker sore, these sites. Then you get this breakout of raspberry-like lesions that occur all over the body like with yaws. Unlike penta, which is limited to affecting the skin, beadle-like yaws considered to be invasive because it can also affect your bones and other internal tissues.

Also used to be confused with leprosy because lesions can lead to painful ulcerations, bone deformities and disfigurement especially of the face. Eugh. And then some evolutionary biologists and epidemiologists think that bejeweled mutated into syphilis. They think that sexually transmitted syphilis emerged from endemic syphilis in southwest Asia around 3000 BCE and that the disease then spread to Europe and the rest of the world. And they think that syphilis mutated and got more severe over time, especially near the end of the 15th century. However, while it seems certain that Pinta, Yaas, Bejal, aka endemic syphilis,

were in Europe, Asia, and Africa before European explorers connected Europe to the rest of the world. Many if not most think that syphilis came from the Americas. And now for another quick hypothesis, the Unitarian Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the tripanomal diseases, tripanemal, fucking, Clifford, that's your fault. The tripo, triponimal diseases were always distributed around the world. According to this theory, both syphilis and non-venereal tripanimal diseases are variants of the same infections and the clinical differences happen only because of geographic and climate variations and to the degree of cultural development of

populations within disparate areas. You know, maybe if it's like warm and you're a little more hands with everybody than a disease like, okay, I'll just spread out, you know, the hand to hand or you know skin to skin. But maybe it's a colder climate and you don't touch everybody as much but you do fuck, you know, then it's like, okay, I'll just I'll just go from penis to the gene. Theory adherents believe that YAAA started in central and western Africa From there spread to the Iberian Peninsula in Europe only about 50 years before Columbus has made in voyage to the Americas due to the kidnapping and selling of enslaved African people by the thousands in the Iberian Peninsula that began around that time. According to this theory, Yaa stayed the same in

Africa and other countries with similar climate conditions but then began to evolve into endemic syphilis in countries with a colder, drier climate, and countries with less, you know, personal hygiene practices. Then the bacteria transformed again into venereal syphilis in new environments where people were living in more urban areas, paying more attention to personal hygiene, frankly not touching each other and sharing things like utensils, but still, fuck it. It's crazy how parasites, viruses, bacteria, etc. They will just, you know, do everything they can to stay alive. They'll just mutate

and just keep spreading based on how host behavior changes, right? You guys are gonna keep sharing spoons? Huh, okay. Are you gonna keep sharing dicks, pussies, mouths, and buttholes? Haha All right! I can work with that. Now a quick look. That was my impersonation of a bacterial infection by the way. Now a quick look at the Colombian hypothesis, which again is the most popular hypothesis. According to it, Christopher Columbus and his crew brought syphilis back to Europe in 1493 because they literally raped a whole bunch of natives wherever they landed in the New World. And then they brought back a new STI they'd acquired from all of that evil raping. Brought it right back into Europe.

The Real History That Were Not Taught in School History is not history when you whitewash shit, is it? I think it's just propaganda. There are all kinds of written historical records, including records written by Columbus himself that during his first voyage to the Americas He and his crew took numerous girls and women as concubines and that Columbus himself handed out native women or a lot of them Whatever you want to call it that they had kidnapped or traded for or or bought from local tribes to his men for sexual gifts I will not brutalize you with quote after quote since Columbus is not our topic this week, but here's one from quote since Columbus is not our topic this week but here's one from Michele De Cunillo who wrote a letter during Columbus's second voyage dated October 28th 1495. De Cunillo was a soldier

on this voyage and he like many of the crew were were given gifts of women and girls and this is what that son of a bitch thought of one of his gifts. One day we came upon a canoe on which there were three or four carib men. We captured that canoe with all the men and one carib was wounded by a spear in such a way that we thought he was dead and cast him for dead into the sea but instantly saw him swim. In so doing we caught him and with the grapple hauled him over the bulwarks of the ship where we cut his head with an axe. The other caribs together with those slaves we later sent to Spain. While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me and with whom, having taken her into my cabin, she being naked according to their custom, I conceived desire

to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution, but she did not want it and treated me with her fingernails in such a manner that I wish I had never begun. But seeing that, to tell you the end of it all, I took a rope and thrashed her well, for which she raised such unheard-of screams that you would not have believed your ears. Finally we came to an agreement in such manner that I can tell you that she seemed to have been brought up in a school of harlots. Oh, yay Columbus. Thankful to live in such a beautiful place, but also fuck that guy. Fuck most of his crew.

They could have explored, and even colonized, in a much more humane way. Showed people that they conquered a lot more mercy than they did. I know it was a different time, but come on. There was also a lot of European people back then who came to the New World and just didn't fucking go willy-nilly raping natives. Two Spanish physicians, Fernandez de Ovideo and Ruy Diaz de Isla, were present when Columbus and his men got back from their first voyage. And Dr. de Ovideo quickly noticed that some of these dudes had brought a new disease home with them. De Ovideo also confirmed that although he had never seen the disease before, it was familiar to the indigenous people Columbus brought back and they had some sort of treatments for it.

The other physician, Dr. De Isla, called it, quote, an unknown disease so far not seen and never described. De Isla wrote in a manuscript that Columbus' pilots and other crew members had syphilis when they returned to the New World, and then the disease was found in more and more men and women in Barcelona in 1493. That's fucking crazy, like right when they got back. Just showed up. Man. Soon thereafter showed up in France then in Italy in the late 1400s when King Charles the 8th and the French army invaded Naples Italian doctors described how the French were quote covered with pustules and quote dying

from a sexually transmitted disease. You know obviously translation into modern terms. During the Battle of Fornovo in July of 1495 when King Charles VIII to France fought a coalition of Italian armies in North Italy, Italian physicians described diseased French soldiers writing that they had a quote generalized eruption consisting of pustules more terrifying than leprosy and elephantiasis and that could be lethal, it could be lethal and was transmitted through sexual intercourse.

So just a variant of what was said earlier. They were encountering syphilis for the first time and the French were blamed for spreading the disease. Other historic accounts will soon blame Jewish people for spreading syphilis to Europe. A very popular thing in medieval Europe to blame a Jewish people for pretty much anything. 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews which expelled Jewish people from

Spain and its territories if they refused to convert to Catholicism. About 200,000 people did refuse. A lot of people and most of them settled in northern Africa or southern Europe. A large group of them settled outside of the gates of Rome. They were not allowed inside the city and then there was an outbreak what is thought to have been syphilis. And about 30,000 people died in the area of Rome. The disease made it inside the city walls. And some historians slash writers blamed Jewish people for bringing it there.

Now real quick before going over how treatment evolved over the years, I want to share a weird old theory and its variance on the origin of syphilis. According to written reports from the 16th century, there was a belief amongst many that syphilis originated from sex between a Spanish sex worker and a person with leprosy. Then that same sex worker infected the army of Charles VIII. Paracelsus, an early 16th century Swiss physician, alchemist and philosopher, believed that syphilis came from a sex worker with gonorrhea having sex with a French person with leprosy. The two afflictions were just smushed together and then presto chango, a new disease was born. Other theories stated that the sex worker had a uterine abscess and had sex

with a person with leprosy or that wine was poisoned with blood from a person with leprosy and that turned into syphilis. Okay, a lot of thoughts. Now let's look at how this mashup disease has been treated over the years. Currently you just take penicillin or if you're allergic to penicillin like myself you take a similar antibiotic you're not allergic to like doxycycline or ceftriaxone but penicillin as an antibiotic not discovered until the early 20th century. The journey to an effective treatment for syphilis took centuries. It was not until the 19th century that physicians really started to kind of in general even differentiate the types of STDIs that people were infected with. Back in 1767, John Hunter, a Scottish surgeon, was trying to understand

venereal diseases and did an experiment where he put the quote, urethral secretion from a gonorrhea patient. So he scraped up some of that nasty dick discharge and he put the quote, urethral secretion from a gonorrhea patient. So he scraped up some of that nasty dick discharge and he put that into the foreskin of a healthy patient. So that's fun. And then that poor bastard soon developed syphilis. So he quote, proved that syphilis came from gonorrhea, but he didn't.

He didn't know the difference between syphilis and gonorrhea. So he probably just gave, you know, this other guy syphilis or gave a guy who had already fucked his way into some syphilis, some and gonorrhea. So he probably just gave, you know, this other guy syphilis. Or gave a guy who had already fucked his way into some syphilis some free gonorrhea. I don't know. What a lucky fellow though. Over six decades, decades, over six decades later, decades, in 1831, French physician Philippe Record conducted a study that showed that gonorrhea occurs after contact with gonorrhea and syphilis occurs after contact with syphilis. Step in the right direction. Then nearly eight decades later on March 3rd 1905 the Department of Dermatology at the Charité Hospital in Berlin three German physicians Fritz Fritz Schauden, Erich Hoffmann and Fred Nufield were the first people to ever

observe the source of syphilis. The bacteria treponema pallidum. They observed the spiral-shaped bacteria in a lesion from a syphilis patient using dark field... oh boy... microscopy... microscopy. It's like microscopy but not pronounced that way. Backing up now to talk about treatment. One historic treatment for syphilis I mentioned earlier first used in the 16th century was that guayac, that brown resin derived from the guayacum tree. These plants were considered blood cleansers. They're not. They do have medicinal properties though. Guayac can kill some types of bacteria with direct application, but you can't exactly rub some on a syphilis shanker and then just cure the disease that is also in your blood.

And this reminds me of how people are thinking that bleach could kill COVID. And it can, but not like they were thinking. You can pour bleach directly onto a virus and you can kill that virus, but what you can't do is just fucking drink a shit ton of bleach and expect the bleach to only kill the virus inside of you and not also kill you. It's actually a great way to fucking weed people out though. I do recommend that some people drink bleach whether or not feel it well. Because I mean, oftentimes the person is like I'll fucking show you I'll drink some bleach. They're not offering a lot to society. But anyway similarly you can't

apply enough guayac to kill all of the syphilis bacteria in your body or on your body with or like ingest enough guayac without making yourself so sick that you just can't handle any more guayac. You'll just get sick and not cure the disease. You'll just sweat, pee, and shit yourself into an extremely unwell and dehydrated state and then deal with that on top of still having whatever you're trying to cure. Mercury also became a common treatment. Medieval doctors, they loved them some mercury. Paracelus, that early 16th century Swiss physician we met, supported mercury treatment. It was the norm. Mercury was already being used to treat leprosy

and definitely wasn't helping. Like for sure making it worse, much worse. Some of the many harmful effects of mercury poison are actually skin lesions, there's that word again, scarring, epidermal thickening, skin discoloration, rashes, redness, itchiness, etc. But doctors didn't know that because literally all medieval doctors if they treated diseases and other ailments today like they did back then they would be considered dangerous quacks with virtually no understanding of medical science they'd probably have some account that had the word truth or in it they have a fucking YouTube channel that would have way too many people following it again thank you scientists without

curious studious people like you we'd still be living in a fucking medieval horror show and I probably would have died by now mercury was thought to purge out the virus because it can cause excessive salivation. It was thought at the time that you could purge viruses from your body through just sweating, salivating, or just pissing enough. Prolonged exposure to high doses of mercury can lead to so many things. This is a great list. Feeling numb or dull pain in certain parts of your body. Tremors, uncontrollable shaking, unsteady walk, double vision or blurry vision, or even blindness,

memory loss, generalized brain damage, seizures, tremors, not being considered cool, I added that one, loss of coordination, muscle weakness, numbness, tingling, personality changes, sometimes severe, anxiety, depression, kidney damage, heart changes, sometimes severe, anxiety, depression, kidney damage, heart disease, permanent nervous system damage, having a weird, you know, kind of off-putting aura. I added that one. And death. So everyone back in the

medieval day getting treated with mercury for syphilis would still get all that syphilis had to offer, plus a good chunk of that stuff. After a few centuries, that kind of bullshit in the 1880s, bismuth salts were introduced as a new syphilis treatment. Bismuth is a metallic element. It's hard, brittle, lustrous, coarsely crystalline. It's a gray-white with a reddish tinge when found naturally. Bismuth salts, they actually do legitimately help inhibit the growth of some bacteria. Certain salts can form a sort of protective barrier in the stomach. The active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol is abysmal salt and I can attest personally that it Pepto works. It has saved me

numerous times from explosive destroying both boxers and pants situations. But it doesn't do shit for syphilis. A few decades later, 1908, German scientist Paul Ehrlich won a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the discovery of... Clifford? Arsphenamine. It's a yellow crystalline powder made up of arsenic atoms linked to other molecules in a chemically complex structure.

Marketed under the name of salversan, the compound acted much like an antibiotic. It was the first medicine that could treat and sometimes eliminate syphilis in a patient if the infection was caught in the early stages. So that is very cool. However, the treatment, very unstable, potentially lethal. The arsenic can build up in the body and lead to brain hemorrhages that can cause stupor, convulsions, vomit, headache, fever, delirium, and death. Sweet Jesus. So many examples of treatment being worse than the disease. Especially medieval times. So you have the sniffles, do you? Reddy nose, mild headache, muscle tension, some fatigue.

Been lasting a few days. Sounds like the common cold. Luckily I have just a thing. I shall cover you with leeches, drain you of your blood, drill a hole in the center of youreches, drain you of your blood, drill a hole in the center of your forehead, have you drink your own piss, and rub this elixir I've concocted of mostly raw eggs and dog shit on every part of your body that aches." All of that nonsense, historically accurate, by the way.

Doesn't seem to be any reliable data suggesting how often people being treated for syphilis with salver sand died as a result. But I'm guessing often. Still for many this was worth the risk since there was no option until penicillin showed up. No other option. Speaking of penicillin, in 1928 Scottish physician Sir Alexander Fleming, he discovered it accidentally. And then years later after 1943 it would become the primary and extremely effective treatment for syphilis and so many other diseases. Such a miraculous discovery. Let's meet Dr. Fleming right after today's second in two mid-show sponsor breaks.

Thanks for listening to those sponsors. Now who was the dude who discovered penicillin? Sir Alexander Fleming was born in 1881. In 1895, he moved from his homeland of Scotland to London to live with his older brother. 1901, he began studying medicine at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School at the University of London. He was going to be a surgeon, but he got a temporary position at the Inoculation Department at St. Mary's Hospital, ended up entering the field of bacteriology, where he would

revolutionize the treatment of so many diseases. During World War I, while serving with the Royal Army Medical Corps as a bacteriologist, he studied wounds in a lab in Boulogne, France. There he made the interesting discovery that antiseptics were not helping soldiers because they had negative effects on the body's ability to break down bacteria. More soldiers were actually dying from antiseptic treatment than from the infections they were supposed to treat. He recommended that soldiers keep their wounds clean and dry, but not many people listened. Right? The burden of scientific innovators constantly battling the general public who are

frankly often not smart or educated enough to understand how much they're helping. He returned to St. Mary's in 1918, continued his work in bacteriology, and a decade later in September of 1928 Fleming returned to his lab after a month away he discovered that a culture he had of Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterium commonly found on the skin and in the nose of about 30% of people that can sometimes lead to staph infections was moldy. This mold was later identified as the fungus Penicillium notatum and this fungus was fucking awesome. Sweet sweet mold. You know, it's kind of bad rap most of its life, but this mold a literal lifesaver.

Fleming saw that the colonies of bacteria surrounding the mold had been destroyed. Fleming would later say when I woke up just after dawn on September 28th, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic or bacteria killer but I suppose that was exactly what I did. And how incredible. Like how many times have you heard about how amazing it would be to discover the cure for cancer? That's kind of like a go-to. Oh my gosh. You know, why can't we discover this cure for cancer? That would be the greatest thing ever. You know, that could you know easily be considered the most important discovery in the history of the world. Well, this discovery that Fleming made on par with that discovery, it has been estimated

that over 500, over 500 million lives have been saved thanks to penicillin being developed less than a century ago. Hundreds of millions more lives will be saved in the coming decades and billions of additional people have had the quality of their lives greatly improved thanks to the miraculous medicine. Fleming originally called the substance produced by the mold mold juice but then changed the name to penicillin based on the type of fungus it comes from. A good call. Probably pretty hard to get people excited about mold juice. I mean imagine that marketing campaign. New from Bare Evil, Inc. Mole Juice, the cure for everything that ails you. Sinus infection, meningitis, pneumonia.

Drink a bit of mole juice. Nasty rash, syphilitic sores, penis or vaginal discharge. Pour some mole juice on it. Urinary tract infection, staph infection, strep throat. Pour a gallon of mold juice in your bath water and soak. And pound a pint of mold juice as well to feel well. Mold juice! Mold's still gross. But mold juice?

When it comes to making you feel better, nothing else comes close. Warning. Mold juice tastes like two skunks fucking on a pile of trash after sleeping in the puddle of yeast infection. Possible side effects of ingesting, soaking in, or topically applying mold juice include nausea, diarrhea, hives, dizziness, complete dissociation, fever, liver damage, kidney explosion, general evaporation, colon disintegration, and turning into Swamp Thing. Not sure how you felt about that, but it was very fun for me. At first, Dr. Fleming thought his new antibiotic was an enzyme, but then he learned what it really was. He learned that the mold killed bacteria thanks to producing a self-defense chemical.

And he published his findings and presented the information to the Medical Research Club in 1929, where no one seemed to give a shit. Why not? Partially because he wasn't able to isolate the penicillin into a usable form of medicine. So he sent his mold to anybody who now, you know, wanted to try and help. Thought that that they could help do that, but for years no one could. One of his colleagues, Harold Raistrick, a biochemist and expert in fungal substances said, the production of penicillin for therapeutic purposes

is almost impossible. Luckily more and more scientists would keep trying. And in 1937, some Oxford scientists in England, Howard Flory and Ernest Chain were studying microorganisms. Ernest came across Fleming's article on penicillin. He suggested to Howard Flory, his supervisor, that they try and isolate it. Since Oxford had a strain of penicillium

on hand in one of their labs, the two started the, quote, penicillin project with a team of other scientists. Due to the challenge of the task, plus some workplace conflicts, they struggled just like Fleming did. Excuse me, but two years later, 1939, Flory created a team with Norman Heatley,

an English biologist and biochemist who grew his penicillium, and Ernest Chain, a German born British biochemist who purified it. They were able to purify penicillin, but the process was, quote, painfully inefficient. Still, they were able to get enough penicillin but the process was quote painfully inefficient. Still they were able to get enough penicillin to run some animal trials. On May 25th 1939 they did their first animal experiment. They infected eight mice with

deadly strepacocci bacteria. Four were given penicillin and incredibly those four survived. And then they published their work in August of 1940 and the other four of course course, died. Their paper garnered widespread interest, but they were still extremely limited in the application of their new antibiotic because it took gallons of quote mold broth, that might be worse than mold juice,

to produce just a fingernails worth of penicillin. They had to use bedpans, milk churns, food tins, bathtubs to store this broth. Eventually they developed fermentation vessels to store this broth. Eventually they developed fermentation vessels to hold the broth. The Oxford lab became the penicillin factory. Six so-called penicillin girls were tasked with tending to the broth, oh how fun that must have been, and farming penicillin from it every week. Ruth Callow, Claire Inyot, Betty Cook, Peggy Gardner, Megan Lancaster, and Patricia McKegney Meanwhile, subsequent animal trials were not always as promising as those first ones,

and sometimes, that first one, sometimes the mice injected with penicillin would die right along with the control group mice. Still, getting approved for human trials was, you know, the goal, but it was proving difficult. But then in February of 1941, they get the opportunity to treat a man who is definitely going to die based on all available proven treatment options that were not penicillin. A 43-year-old police officer named Albert Alexander got real unlucky. He got a dangerous infection that began by just getting pricked on his mouth, like on the lip, by a rose thorn. This poor bastard. His body was now succumbing to sepsis, this life-threatening complication of an infection

when chemicals released in the bloodstream to fight an infection trigger inflammation throughout the body that can cause a cascade of changes that damage multiple organ systems leading them to fail. On February 12, 1941, Alexander was given an intravenous infusion of 160 mg, aka 200 units of penicillin. And within 24 hours hours Alexander's temperature had dropped, his appetite had returned and the infection had begun to subside. Huge win! Monumental achievement for science in the medical community. But

after five days they ran out of penicillin and the infection causing the sepsis returned and he died a month later. The team knew that they had to do something to prevent this from ever happening again. So the Oxford team approached a variety of pharmaceutical companies and asked for their help in manufacturing penicillin. Well, because of World War II restrictions, no British companies could dedicate the resources needed to mass develop penicillin. Several months later, in June 1941, Howard Florian, Norman Heatley, took some penicillin to the U.S. met with Charles Thom, principal

mycologist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Andrew Jackson Moyer, director of the Northern Research Laboratory. The Department of Agriculture's research lab in Peoria, Illinois, set up a research lab for penicillin and they used deep fermentation tanks to help make the creation process more efficient. The lab had excess corn steep liquor, a byproduct of cornstarch, and they learned that when they added it to the mold broth, they could greatly increase the amount of penicillin they got. Love all this experimenting, right? That's how we fucking learn stuff. You just gotta try and throw so much shit against the wall. They also started a worldwide search for different strains of mold to find which had the highest percentages of penicillin, and during that search,

Mary Hunt, an assistant at the lab, found a rotting cantaloupe at a grocery store. an assistant at the lab found a rotting cantaloupe at a grocery store. I love shit like this. She brought it in and the mold from that cantaloupe produced 200 times the penicillin found in Fleming's original mold. Another game-changer, right? I already love cantaloupe, but now I love it more. And now they can produce 200 times the amount of penicillin used in the same production process. But still US companies reluctant to produce penicillin on a large scale, some people just more reluctant to embrace change than others. But by the end of 1941, after the US joined the war, demand increased as more human trials produced more positive results while a lot of soldiers were dying not directly from their injuries

but from infections. And by 1943, the US would be producing enough penicillin for not just the US military but also for their allies as well. One of the many good side effects of the carnage created by World War II was the rapid advancement of penicillin production. In a 2017 article for emerging infectious diseases Robert Gaines wrote, in 1941 the United States did not have sufficient stock of penicillin to treat a single patient. At the end of 1942, enough penicillin was available to treat fewer than a hundred patients. By September 1943, however, the stock was sufficient to satisfy the demands of the entire allied armed forces. Wow. Howard Flory, Ernest Cheney, Alexander Fleming would all win the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology

or Medicine, but then their relationship would sour over who got the most credit for discovering penicillin. Love it. So smart, but just as insecure and sensitive and ego-driven as the rest of us plebes. Also during World War II, penicillin was first used to treat not just syphilis, but also gonorrhea and chlamydia, because STIs in general were a huge drain on military resources. So many horny soldiers just constantly trying to get laid. Guys getting sick from STIs a major cause of missing manpower in both the First and

Second World Wars and I'm guessing every war before them. Check this out between 1914 and 1918 there had been over 400,000 hospital admissions from the British Army for venereal diseases alone, including syphilis. It's been estimated that around 5% of all those who served in Britain's forces during the war became infected, taking each of them away from their duties for potentially several weeks at a time, and syphilis was the main culprit. In the US, during World War I, STIs were responsible for around 18,000 servicemen being unable to contribute to the war effort on any given day. Thanks to penicillin, that number was reduced in

World War II to about 600 per day by 1944. In 1943, Dr. Joseph Earl Moore, a physician based in Baltimore, Maryland and part of the venereal disease division of the medical clinic at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, started running trials using penicillin to treat syphilis. And by early 1944, they'd found out, more or less, which doses would effectively cure the infection at various stages. More experiments over the next few years would further fine tune the treatment. And by 1947, it was the standard treatment for many STIs in the

Western world, a highly effective cure with antibiotic reducing syphilis case numbers in the UK, for example, by 90% over this following 10 years. And now before jumping into the Tuskegee study, let's just briefly look at why the study was authorized in the first place. How big of a problem was syphilis in America in general outside of the military? Well, from 1923 to 1925 was syphilis in America in general outside of the military? Well from 1923 to 1925 syphilis was the tenth leading cause of death in the US. That's wild and there were about 17,515 syphilis deaths per year. In 1937 former Surgeon General Thomas Perrin wrote Shadow on the Land where he estimated that about 680,000 people were

receiving some form of treatment for syphilis and 60,000 babies were born each year with congenital syphilis. Right? And roughly 40% of those babies would die. That's fucking 24,000 infant deaths a year. All those 680,000 people, right? They're not getting like the like good effective treatment either. Whew.

And actually at least 24,000 infant deaths a year you know occurred because of syphilis because the real number of babies born with it and also the real number of the overall infected may have been much higher but there was such a stigma around syphilis that public health officials are very reluctant to properly document cases. In response to all that death and pain in 1938 Congress passed the National Venereal Disease Control Act. The act created grants for clinics testing and treatment. This was the first US coordinated federal push against syphilis

and that push would become a lot stronger and more effective in the mid 1940s once antibiotics arrived. After the introduction of penicillin there were major decreases in syphilis in the US. From 1946 to 1955, annual reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis decreased from 94,957 to 6,454. And more importantly, all these new cases could now be cured. Before penicillin was used to treat syphilis, the death rate for adults, 10% within 40 years. After it was introduced introduced the death rate well should have been essentially 0% but still some people would die and some of those people were receiving regular medical treatment or at least that's

what they were being told during the 1930s 40s 50s and 60s while so many studies and treatments for syphilis were happening and being developed the United States Public Health Service was secretly running a terrible study on untreated syphilis in black men a study that would continue for decades after were happening and being developed in the United States, Public Health Service was secretly running a terrible study on untreated syphilis in black men. A study that would continue for decades after penicillin became widely available for the general public. That study, of course, took place in Tuskegee, Alabama.

The researchers recruited 600 black men for their study. The entire study was a major ethical violation led to generations of mistrust in the medical system among black Americans that continues to this day. And now that you know more about syphilis than you probably ever cared to know, especially how it affects your mom and dad, let's jump into our timeline of the infamous Tuskegee study. We're marching down a time-sucked timeline. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service and the Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, began a study to document the natural history of syphilis.

And what would be the point of that documentation? Well, in theory, to help find an effective treatment. The study was launched years before a cure was discovered. And so a human study, not a bad idea, if the participants would have been told the true nature of the study and if not all of the participants were black. Today this study is officially called the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, but back in 1932 it was named Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the Negro male. The Tuskegee, but back in 1932 it was named Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the Negro male. The Tuskegee study, as it's most commonly known, again

was conducted for 40 years between 1932 and 1972. The stated purpose was to observe the natural history of untreated syphilis. One of the purposes of the study was to see if syphilis caused cardiovascular damage, more than neurological damage, and to see if the natural course of the disease was different between black and white people. How could they know, you know, if it was different, if they weren't simultaneously conducting an identical study on white participants? Well there actually was another similar study that was done on white men and women, just not in the US,

it was done in Norway. It was called the Oslo study, also super fucked up. Between 1891 and 1910 at Oslo Hospital, approximately 2,000 patients with syphilis were told they were being treated with mercury, but they were not. And while we now know that was probably a good thing, and the doctor in charge, department head, Cesar Peter Maler, Maler Boke, he also thought it was a good thing, but still super fucked up because they were being lied to. The result of Boke's patient observations were later documented by his successor Edwin Bruisgaard in the paper The Fate of Syphilitics Who Had Received No Specific Treatment, published in 1929, and that study would have a major impact on the Tuskegee study.

It was the only available study of untreated syphilis available in 1931 when the US Public Health Service commissioned the Tuskegee study. It was the only available study of untreated syphilis available in 1931 when the U.S. Public Health Service commissioned the Tuskegee study. According to Tuskegee University, the United States Public Health Service, quote, was entrusted with the responsibility to monitor, identify trends in the health of the citizenry and develop interventions to treat disease, ailments, and negative trends adversely impacting the health and wellness of Americans. The Public Health Service had differentments, and negative trends adversely impacting the health and wellness of Americans. The Public Health Service had different sections, and one of those was dedicated to venereal diseases. Tuskegee University writes that research standards were for their times adequate, by comparison

to today's standards, dramatically different and influenced by the professional and personal biases of the people leading the PHS. Scientists believe that few people outside of the scientific community could comprehend the complexities of research from the nature of the scientific experiments to the consent involved in becoming a research subject. These sentiments were particularly true about the poor and uneducated black community. And that sentiment is a great way to build a lot of mistrust between the medical community and the general public. Right? Just the sentiment

of you're too fucking stupid to understand how important this research is. So we're going to treat you like a lab rat, instead of like a human being. Right? That's being an arrogant asshole. I do not envy the onus of responsibility placed on doctors. There is an expectation that you act more honorably than the average member of the general public by far. That you have the utmost integrity.

And that you don't ever wield your knowledge like a weapon against those less educated than yourself, you know, which is gonna be most people. A good doctor, in my opinion, needs to be both whip-smart and also humble. And if you're not capable of bearing the weight of all that responsibility and doing so with the humility that allows you to speak to your patients and not at them, maybe get the fuck out of the medical profession. Because you're gonna do more harm than good and risk damaging a lot of trust, you know, between medical professionals that's currently more fragile, fragile than has been in decades. Researchers for Tuskegee, for the Tuskegee study, did not

of course collect informed consent from the study participants. Even more fucked up, they did not offer treatment after penicillin became widely available, which makes this study a lot worse than the previous Oslo study. And the study only ended in 1972 because of the recommendations from the ad hoc advisory panel, which was convened by the assistant secretary for health and scientific affairs. And that only happened because news articles about the study came out and there was a lot of public anger. Had it not been for the press, you know, finally hearing about it and putting on the front page of papers, it would have continued until all the participants died. Participants who would have never been told they had syphilis and, you know, would have never

been given the proper cheap widely available medicine to treat it. Signs advertising the study read, as I mentioned at the very beginning of the episode, free blood test free treatment by County Health Department and government doctors. You may feel well and still have bad blood. Come and bring all your family. The bring all your family edition makes it feel a little extra evil to me, right? Bring your family, bring your family to the clinic where we'll get rid of your bad blood. We'll take great care of you. Hundreds of men signed up for the study, according to the Washington Post. Some of the men thought they were being treated for rheumatism or bad stomachs. The men were never told that

they were going to be monitored until they died, never told that they would not receive treatment. The participants were 600 black men, aged 25 and older. 399 of them had syphilis. The subjects of the study were, were quote impoverished sharecroppers local to Macon County Alabama. Not only were participants told that they had syphilis or excuse me not told that they had syphilis specifically the men were again told they're being treated for bad blood which is this vague term used to describe a variety of different illnesses at the time anything from syphilis to anemia. They were also not told that syphilis can be transmitted through sex. There were all kinds of informed consent

violations. The participants were not told the full name of the study, the purpose, the consequences of the treatment slash non-treatment. They did not know about the debilitating and life-threatening consequences of the treatments they were to receive or lack of treatments. They did not know how syphilis could affect their families How if their partners got it they could transfer to their babies how untreated syphilis can lead to miscarriage stillbirth death shortly after birth As I went over earlier right so much infant death Congenital syphilis still today a significant cause a preventable stillbirths and infant, you know mortality globally They also were not presented with the choice to quit the study once penicillin became available. The participants received free

exams, free meals on appointment days, and burial insurance for their participation. That's fucking dark. At the time of the Tuskegee study, the Tuskegee area had the highest syphilis rate in the U.S. Tuskegee, the county seat of Macon County, was called the black belt because of rich soil and the large number of black sharecroppers who lived there. A study took place on campus at the Tuskegee Institute. Most of the participants came from poverty, were illiterate. They received, you know, again, medical exams, food on exam days, also rides to and from

clinics, free medical care for minor ailments, and again, that paid burial. According to the CDC, Tuskegee community members were aware of the study, but understood it to be a special government health care program. And per the ad hoc advisory panel's report, the Macon County Health Department and Tuskegee Institute were cognizant of the study. The study was originally only scheduled to last from six to nine months. Some patients were treated with arsenic, bismuth, mercury. The original study did

not really produce much useful data so the researchers decided that they would go ahead and study the natural history of syphilis and follow the participants all the way until death. When that decision was made all treatment was stopped, which went directly against government legislation that mandated treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. According to socialworker.com several other ethical issues surrounded the study. First, Alabama had passed a law in 1927 that required the reporting and treatment of several venereal diseases, including syphilis, by medical personnel. The USPHS ignored the state

law, choosing to disregard the impact of untreated syphilis on wives of the married men who were subjects. During the study, some men were given placebo treatments like aspirin and mineral supplements and check this out, PHS researchers, PHS, they convinced local Macon County doctors to also not treat the participants if they were to come to them and getting the agreement of these local doctors ahead of time was part of why they held the research at the Tuskegee Institute. Man, why would you ever choose to be a doctor and work in a predominantly black area if you clearly did not give a fuck about black lives? I mean, I guess just money, medical curiosity.

The CDC later reported, quote, local physicians asked to assist with study and not to treat men. Decision was made to follow the men until death. Nurse Eunice Rivers, a black woman, was asked to be a recruiter in a conduit between the researchers and the men and she agreed and she'd be along for the whole ride. Why? Well maybe she believed in the study's scientific value and potential to address black health issues. Maybe she saw the study as an opportunity to draw federal attention and resources to black health problems. She might have seen it as a way to

benefit the community she served, might have, or maybe she did what she did, you know, for the same reason so many of us humans do what we do, you know, just rationalize, I don't know, she rationalized it to make money, she lied to herself, rationalized something she knew was unethical simply for the social approval it got her with medical coworkers, may have rationalized it for a reason as simple as just you know not

wanting to to lose her her nurse's salary and have to get a job somewhere else. However she rationalized it she kept records and drove the participants to government doctors when they came to Macon County. She was also so dedicated she once followed a study subject to a private doctor speaking to them privately to ensure that they did not give the patient treatment for syphilis. It's fucking outrageous. A journal article about the study was published on September 12th 1936. It stated that the men already had latent syphilis, that they were not purposefully infected.

The article was titled, Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro, a Comparative Study of Treated and Untreated Cases. And it was written for the Journal of American Medical Association. The authors wrote, a determination of the effectiveness of treatment in preventing the transmission of syphilis is one of the basic problems in the control of this disease. Second in importance to it is the effect which treatment has in preventing late and crippling manifestations. The administration of adequate treatment in early syphilis is recognized as the most important factor in the prevention both of communicable relapse

and of the early complications so detrimental to the health of the individual patient. As a result of surveys of a few years ago in Southern rural areas, it was learned that a considerable portion of the infected Negro population remained untreated during the entire course of syphilis. Such individuals seemed to offer an unusual opportunity to study the untreated syphilitic

patient from the beginning of the disease to the death of the infected person. An opportunity was also offered to compare this process, uninfluenced by modern treatment, with the results attained when treatment has been applied. The study consisted of, as I mentioned, 399 men with syphilis who had never had treatment and 201 men without it. 275 men who received treatment during the first two years of the syphilis process. All participants were older than 25. The men were examined, had their medical history taken. One of the researchers goals was to analyze morbidity, the condition of suffering from a disease or medical condition. They wrote a comparison of the physical and mental condition of the untreated

syphilitic patients with the apparently non-syphilitic Negroes in the general population permits an estimate of the effect of syphilis in the production of morbid processes involving the various systems of the body. Only 16% of the 399 untreated syphilis patients gave no evidence of morbidity as compared to 61% of the 201 presumably non-syphilitic Negroes. The effect of syphilis in producing disability in the early years of adult life is to be noted by comparing the cases with no demonstrable morbidity over 40 years of age. This comparison shows that only one-fourth of the Negroes with untreated syphilis had no manifestations of disease, whereas three-fourths of the uninfected population were free. A study of the untreated syphilitic and presumably non-syphilitic individuals under the age of 40 years indicates that syphilis in this period tends greatly to increase the frequency of

manifestations of cardiovascular disease. And that's an important note, as you'll see later. A lot of people in this study who had untreated syphilis, you know, will die of heart disease. Heart disease probably, if not certainly brought on by syphilis. Of the 174 men with syphilis under age 40, 25.3% had definite manifestations of cardiovascular disease as compared with 5.7% of 87 individuals in the same age group who were non-syphilitic. Damn, a 20% increase. Of 225 untreated men with syphilis over age 40,

63.1% had quote definite manifestations of cardiovascular disease as compared with 37.7% among 114 non-syphilitic individuals. Right? It gets worse as time goes on. Roughly a 25% increase. Of the 399 untreated patients, 7.8% showed quote, definite clinical evidence of central nervous system syphilis. While an additional 18.3% the diagnosis of central nervous system involvement was based on serologic evidence only. In the group of 399 untreated patients with syphilis, 46, 11.5%, gave evidence of late involvement of the bones, joints, and skin.

Of these 36 patients, 9% showed periostasis. Oh my gosh, Clifford, get over here! Periostasis, yikes! Periostasis osteitis or Charcot joints. I'm sure there's a couple doctors listening shaking their heads. That's not how you say that. Two patients or less than 1% presented late syphilis of the skin and 8-2% had both a late skin and bone or joint involvement. A lot of stuff going on.

By 1943, 11 years into the study, penicillin widely available and the treatment of choice for syphilis. But again, you know, they're not offered treatment. 1966, jumping way ahead now. 34 years into the study, a PHS venereal disease investigator from San Francisco. Peter Buxton. That's an interesting job title, by the way. What do you do? I'm a venereal disease investigator. I just pictured him like dressed up like Sherlock Holmes and he has a big magnifying glass and he's just constantly inspecting just dicks and pussies. Let me see that! No, it's okay, I'm a professional. I'm a venereal disease investigator. Yes, that's not a regular wart. Anyway, this guy

Peter, perfect name for that. Oh, Peter the fucking Dick Detective. Peter learned about the study and expressed his concerns about the ethics of the research. 1965, Peter Buxton had gotten a job with the PHS while working on grad school. He was asked to track venereal disease cases in the San Francisco Bay area in 1966.

He heard his colleagues talking about a secret, excuse me, secret syphilis study in Alabama. He called the CDC, back then the Communicable Disease Center, and asked for documents on the study. He received a manila envelope with 10 reports. After examining them, he now knew the study was unethical and sent his reports to his superiors and they were like, shut the fuck up, Peter! Just go get your magnifying glass and look at some more dicks, you fucking idiot! No, I don't think they did that, but they did ignore him. PHS officials did form a committee to review the study, but decided to continue because they wanted to track all participants until they died and autopsies could be performed.

I guess just in for a penny, in for a pound kind of logic. Peter Buxton soon left the PHS. He was no longer a venereal disease inspector. He sat down his magnifying glass, he took off his trench coat, he's like, I'm done looking at dicks and pushes up real close. I don't know what he did, but he never forgot about the study. And eventually told an Associated Press reporter, Edith Lettere. In 1968, Edith was working at the San Francisco AP. She met Peter to party. After Peter told her about the study, Edith said in a later interview, I knew that I could not do this. AP in 1972 was

not going to put a young reporter from San Francisco on a plane to Tuskegee, Alabama to go and do an investigative story. But she told Peter that she did know someone else who probably would be funded to do this story. AP reporter Jean Heller, the only one in the special assignment team at the time. Edith knew Jean from their time together working at the New York AP office. So Edith decided, you know, it was time to visit with her parents in Florida so she could bounce over to Miami Beach where Jean was to meet her at the Democratic Convention. Edith approached Jean and said, I'm not an investigative reporter but I think there's

something here. She had documents about the Tuskegee study. Jean said that she took the documents, put them in a briefcase, did not look at them until she was on her flight back to DC. She started to read them. Ray Stevens, the head of the investigative team, was sitting next to her when she did. She showed him the documents and Stevens told her, quote, when we get back to Washington, I want you to drop everything else you're doing and focus on this. Hail Nimrod. That is awesome. Gene Heller later said in an AP article, I thought it couldn't be

the ghastliness of this. When she started to investigate it, she ran into a wall. The government refused to speak about the study. Of course, right? Deny, deny, deny. Gene went to colleges, excuse me, medical schools, other doctors to ask them if they thought something like that could be real. She even asked her mom's gynecologist if he knew about the study and he told her, quote, that's not going on. I just don't believe it. Then one person Jean spoke with remembered seeing the study in a, quote, small medical publication. So Jean went to a big public library in DC asked for documents that used the keywords Tuskegee, farmers, public health service,

or syphilis. And soon in the days long before the internet, when looking shit up like that was about a million times harder than it is today, they found a medical journal with some information on this study. And then they found more information in another edition of this journal and still more information later and Gene said every couple of years they would write something up about it. Mostly it was about the findings, none of the morality was ever questioned. I knew the people had died and I was about to tell the world who they were and what they had. Helen took the journal approached the PHS according to the AP, they, quote, caved.

A medical writer then helped her interview some of the doctors involved, and within a few weeks, she felt like she had enough to publish her story. Mary Aerosmith, bureau chief, suggested they offer the story to the Washington Star if they promised to give the story a spot on the front page. Gene Heller told the AP, as much injustice as there was for black Americans back in 1932, when the study began, I could not believe that an agency of the federal government, as much of a mistake as there was for black Americans back in 1932 when the study began I could not believe that an agency of the federal government as much of a mistake as it was initially could let this continue for 40 years. It just made me furious. I fucking love her. July 25th 1972 the AP published a story about the

Tuskegee study the New York Times would run it on their front page. Following this article there was widespread public outrage and then the study ended three months later. Heller wrote, during a 40-year federal experiment a group of syphilis victims was denied proper medical treatment for their disease. Some participants died as a result but survivors are now getting whatever aid is possible. The US Public Health Service says the experiment conducted by the PHS was designed to determine through autopsies what damage untreated syphilis does to the human body. Of about 600 Alabama black men who originally took part in the study, 200 or so were allowed

to suffer the disease and its side effects without treatment even after penicillin was discovered as a cure for syphilis. Treatment then probably could have saved or helped many of the experiment participants, PHS officials say. They contend that survivors of the experiment are now too old to treat for syphilis, but add that PHS doctors are giving the men thorough physical examinations every two years and are treating them for whatever other ailments and diseases they have developed. Can you imagine being one of these participants and being told, hey I got

some new, I got some bad news, um, you know what you don't want to stay out for this. We, we've been lying to you for about 40 years and much of the pain you've suffered including an untold number of miscarriages and the deaths of partners you've affected, they were a hundred percent avoidable. Sorry about that. But now pinky swear, when you come in here, the medicine we're gonna give you, it's real. It's good medicine now. I'm gonna make sure you can see both my hands when I give it to you so you know I'm not crossing any fingers behind my back. Senator William Proxmire, member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversaw the PHS budgets, said the study

was quote, a moral and ethical nightmare. It's incredible to me that such a thing could ever have happened. The Congress should have careful consideration of compensating the families of these men. Uh, yeah, careful consideration. How about those motherfuckers have to give these people a lot of money and a formal public apology and some of the doctors should go to prison for the murders they have essentially committed. Anything short of that is 100% fucked. Dr. Merlin K. Duvall, Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare announced the beginnings of an investigation. According to the PHS, half of the men with syphilis were given arsenic mercury treatment,

popular treatment in the US when the study began. Other half of the men with syphilis did not receive treatment. 74 of the men with syphilis did not receive treatment. 74 of the men with syphilis still alive in 1972. The AP wrote men were persuaded to participate by promises of free transportation to and from hospitals, free hot lunches, free medical treatment for ailments other than syphilis, and free burial. In 1969 the CDC reviewed the records of 276 men with syphilis from the treated and untreated groups.

Seven died, quote, as a direct result of syphilis. 154 men died of heart failure. But CDC officials say they cannot determine how many of these deaths were caused by syphilis or how many additional deaths may have been linked to the disease. You know, based on what we went over earlier, I'm guessing, you know, at the high end, around 20% of those heart disease deaths were very likely syphilis related. I mean, we'll never know for sure, but if so, that's another 30 or so deaths due to a lack of proper treatment. PHS officials responsible for initiating the Tuskegee study who have long since retired and current PHS officials said initially they did not know their identity. But later a PHS official said the study was initiated in 1932 by Dr. J.R. Heller, Assistant Surgeon General

in the services venereal disease section who subsequently became division chief. Dr. J.D. Millar, chief of the venereal disease branch of the CDC, would tell the AP about the decision not to give the participants penicillin, saying, I doubt it was a one-man decision. These things seldom are. Whoever was director of the VD section at that time, in 1946 or 1947, would be the most logical candidate if he had to pin it down. He said he didn't know who ran the venereal disease section at that time, though. Dr. Millard told the AP, I think a definite moral problem existed when the study was undertaken.

A more serious problem was overlooked in the post-war years when penicillin became available, but was not given to these men. And a moral problem still exists. But the study began when attitudes were much different on treatment and experimentation. At this point in time, with our current knowledge of treatment and the disease and the revolutionary change in approach

to human experimentation, I don't believe the program will be undertaken. Don Prince of the venereal disease branch said that the study showed that the morbidity and mortality rates of untreated syphilis were not as high as they had previously thought but quote, I don't know why the decision was made in 1946 not to stop the program. I was unpleasantly surprised when I first came here and found out about it. It really puzzles me. Because of the age of the participants, the CDC could no longer treat the 74 survivors with syphilis because the side effects or because of the side effects of quote massive penicillin therapy.

Essentially they were too old. The disease had progressed too far along. They'd have to give them such high levels of antibiotics that treatment could be harder on their systems than the infection itself at that point I guess. Dr. Millar added the most critical moral issue about the experiment arises in the post-war era the years after the end of World War II when penicillin became widely available. I know some were treated with penicillin for other disease and then dropped from the program because the drug had some positive effect on the primary disease syphilis. Looking at it now, one cannot see any reason they could not have been treated at that time.

In a New York Times version of the article, Dr. Millar said that the study officials told the patients they could get treatment at any time. Patients were not denied drugs, rather they were not offered drugs. According to Dr. Millar, many doctors believe, quote, it was better not to treat syphilis cases because of the mortality from treatments at the time. After this article came out, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs appointed an ad hoc advisory panel to review the Tuskegee study. The panel decided that the Tuskegee study was ethically unjustified and that the results were disproportionately meager compared with known risks to human subjects involved. October 3, 1972 now, Black Journal, a PBS show dedicated to issues in the African-American community in the U.S. that ran from 1968 to 1977, hosted by Tony Brown, reported on the Tuskegee study

and interviewed participants and important figures in the study. Black Journal, by the way, the first nationally televised public affairs program, produced for, about, and by black Americans. At the time of this 1972 production, 83 of the men were still alive. The government again reported that seven men died directly from syphilis But again, there was all those heart disease deaths Dr. Heller one of the original researchers spoke on why the treatments of the time were withheld saying The treatment for early syphilis is treated with arsenic, bismuth and mercury all of which can be if not lethal Can be very dangerous to the individual if taken in two large doses

The treatment was not a good treatment overall in a sense that you never knew whether a patient was sensitive to arsenic, for example, and bismuth and mercury were apt to have some deleterious effects on a patient particularly if given in two larger doses. So that there was a feeling among many physicians with people or that people with syphilis probably did as well without treatment as they did with it. That was the feeling about the time the study started as I recall it. Ah, is he telling the truth there or twisting it? Despite what he said doctors did treat thousands of people with those drugs in a 1936 report co-authored by Dr.

Heller, the dude who I just quoted. The Public Health Service said that arsenic treatment should be used to treat syphilis. So it feels like he was twisting the truth pretty hard to make himself look like a less of a piece of shit. Dr. Reginald James was a physician with Alabama Public Health Service in Macon County in 1938. He was not directly involved in the study. He also spoke with Black Journal and said, quote, it was a national accepted matter of fact, you can say international accepted form of therapy, arsenic and bismuth. We didn't have the wonder drug penicillin at the time. Nurse Eunice Rivers worked as a liaison, as I said, from 1932 all the way to 1965. Stayed on long after penicillin became widely accepted. And she said if they had lived four years and up with syphilis the chances are

they would live longer with syphilis than they would have without treatment, with treatment. She then corrected herself. Freudian slip maybe. When asked if the researchers might have lied to her and said she said she didn't know and then she added, I really don't believe that they were telling a tale. Just to be you know. I think personally I think this was something that they were sincere in themselves. Dr. John Millar said, well as I understand it the physicians who are actually involved in the study were not to treat patients for syphilis. What I understand from reading the papers is

that the patients were supposedly told that if they wanted to be treated for their syphilis they should ask for it, be treated, and then be taken out of the study. But that's not true. Not sure where he got that. And how are they gonna ask for something if they didn't know? Well that's not even true because they I'm sure some of them asked, hey do I fucking syphilis? And they were told, no no no you got bad blood. Dr. James said he was once told to not treat a patient. Quote, well any patient who came to me and I examined him and I thought he needed treatment I routinely gave him treatment without any knowledge that he was in the particular study

but once I decided to treat him with the arsenicals or bismuth then I was informed that this was a patient in the study and I was to not treat that patient. Eunice River said these men were never told that they could not go to any doctor. Nobody was ever told not to go to any family physician. Ah, but she went to a doctor ahead of one of her subjects and told them not to let the patient know that they had syphilis and to not treat them. So, you know, she's lying. They're all fucking trying to make it seem less bad than it was. Study participant Charles Pollard said that he was prevented from going to a hospital in Birmingham for penicillin shots with other civilized patients not part of the study.

According to this report there was only one black doctor in all of Macon County and he was inaccessible to farmers in the study. Many Macon County residents had never seen a doctor in 1932 and did not have access to a family physician. Here's another quote from the report. In 1936, four years after the study began, the government concluded that untreated syphilitics had a greater death rate and suffered far more heart disease than did syphilitics who were treated. So the stated purpose of the study was already fulfilled after only four years. And yet the Public Health Service continued the experiment, thereby subjecting the men

to further crippling effects of the disease. Exactly. No fucking... It should have been started, but it's even more fucked up that it kept going. Peter Buxton, old venereal private investigator, said that when he reported the study, the response to the moral question was more or less, someone else has set this up. I'm here today. Unfortunate is part of my job

I wish the whole thing would go away Nobody want to confront it directly because they knew it would be nationwide publicity. They knew it would look bad Nobody wanted to take the responsibility. That's great. That's just like the I'm just following orders. That's just my job Imagine you get imagine you brought into a job a job You've taken because you went to school studied something something in medicine because essentially you wanted to help people live longer, healthier lives. And then you find out that a big part of your job is to lie to people about treatment, treatment that they definitely need.

Your job is to interfere with attempts they might make to get readily available treatment for their STI. And you know that the longer you lie to and manipulate them, the greater the odds that will die from heart disease brought on by the bacteria the greater the odds they will suffer one of the many terrible effects of late stage syphilis You be able to do that to not blow the whistle on something so obviously wrong just to collect a paycheck And what's especially heinous about this is they weren't even suffering and dying for some greater good They were just suffering and dying for the last several decades just to what satisfy some random medical curiosity?

To give some researchers some sense of completion ugh Black general reported that the government actually published 15 different articles on this study, but they didn't Become public knowledge until 1972 And we got the best fucked up that so many other doctors Reading about this in journals like that's fine That's fucked up that so many other doctors were reading about this in journals and be like, that's fine. In regards to the question, did any of the men infect their wives or father children with syphilis, Dr. Mellar said it was impossible because all men were in the latent stage and

couldn't infect others. That's bullshit. Dr. James disagreed. He said, these people are infectious depending upon the stage of the disease itself. The individual can carry an organism that causes syphilis for a period of three to four years and this organism can be transmitted by sex relations, right, before it then becomes a disease that is no longer contagious. A 1936 PHS article said that at least 26 men had syphilis for three years. Dr. James said the 26 could have transmitted the disease during that time. Tony Brown

ended this report with, in addition to the medical controversy, the Tuskegee study points up a moral issue. Is human life too precious to be wasted in scientific experimentation? It also opens itself to the charge of racism. Would a responsible governmental agency ever conceive of an experiment on human life using whites as guinea pigs?

Is racism so deep seated that black life has economic, but not social value? That blacks are only useful when earning a profit but valueless and making a significant contribution to society? Syphilis is a curable disease but what about racism? Right that last sentence is a powerful one. Syphilis is a curable disease but what about racism? Well racism is curable but the treatment unfortunately not nearly as straightforward or as fast-acting as penicillin.

In October of 1972, the Ad Hoc Advisory Panel advised that the study end the following month. The Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs announced the end of the Tuskegee study. By the time of the article, at least 40 spouses were diagnosed with syphilis and at least 19 kids had been born with syphilis. The panel interviewed four study participants very shortly after the study was concluded on November 1st 1972. Anonymous subject number one stated that the study started with a blood test. That participant also received shots, later had a spinal puncture. The panel reported doctors came every year or so after 25

years they gave everyone $25 and a certificate. That's fucking crazy. God. Hey, thanks for doing this for 25 years. Here's $25. Oh, and a cool certificate you can put on your fridge. They told him he was in pretty good health. At the beginning, he thought he had bad blood. They said that was syphilis. He just thought it was an incurable disease. He was booked for Birmingham. Oh my God. He was booked for Birmingham for 606 shots but nurse stopped it. Right, when he found out he thought he had syphilis, he wanted to get treatment and the nurse shut it down. Some other doctor took blood that time and he was signed up to go to Birmingham. Nurse Rivers said it wasn't due to take the shots. He went to get on

the bus to Birmingham and they turned him down. This was sometime between 1942 and 1947. The man didn't know he was sick before 1932. He received shots about once a month. Again that spinal puncture. A nurse later told him about the tests and would bring him to the clinic. Quote, he didn't show, he didn't know of any others in the study who had been in the hospital although one man had become blind after a while. He hadn't thought about whether his disease had been cured. The doctor was seeing him every year and he was feeling pretty good. He was not told what the disease might do to him. He stayed in the program because they asked him to. And if I didn't say it before, I think it did, but yeah, untreated syphilis can

lead to blindness. This man only knew about 15 to 20 people in the study and the only time they were all together as a group was when quote the government doctors came in. Anonymous subject number two was part of the control group so he didn't have syphilis. That subject never told what was wrong with him but he had rheumatism and heart disease so that's cool even the control group is getting fucked over. They wanted to see how the life expectancy differ between these two groups with one with untreated syphilis, one with no syphilis, but the

ones with no syphilis still not being medically treated for other shit they have or had. That man referred to Nurse Rivers as well. Subject number three was sick when he entered the program and quote, Nurse Rivers told him he could get treatment. He was informed he had quote, some funny name thing. The panel who interviewed him reported the doctors told him different things. They never said he had any diseases. Once they gave him shots in his back, he just got up and left. They took blood every time. Said they sent it off. Never told him anything about why. Said the first test was good. Later said it was not so good.

The doctors gave them pills or gave him pills and medicine and shots. He didn't know why he was getting shots. Doctor told him he had a bad heart, bad circulation, arthritis, different points. He didn't know if he had ever heard of penicillin or if he'd ever taken any. He said he'd never heard of syphilis. He'd heard of bad blood but didn't know what that meant. My God! Crazy to go see doctors for decades and just have no idea what's happening. They're just taking advantage of this dude. For a subject interviewed, I also mentioned Nurse Rivers., the panel said subject had gotten into the program when people

were going around giving treatment. He didn't know what kind of treatment or what the treatment was for. They drew blood, had them come at different times, never told him anything, never said they tested the blood, never said anything was wrong, did not say why they were treating the subject. He didn't know why they wanted him to be in the program. He didn't think it was helping him. He just went along. Man, he didn't think it was helping him. Yeah, certainly wasn't. November 16th, 1972, the Assistant Secretary for Health recommended the termination of the Tuskegee Study. On November 16th, 1972, the Assistant Secretary for Health recommended the termination of the Tuskegee Study. As recommended by the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Ad Hoc Advisory Panel, I have decided that

the Tuskegee Study as a study of untreated syphilis must be terminated. I will advise you of the necessary steps to be taken to assure the appropriate medical care be given to all remaining participants in the Tuskegee Study as part of the closeout phase of the project. 1973 now. Attorney Fred Gray filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the study participants and their families. Fred Gray, famous famous civil rights lawyer who had once represented Rosa Parks, also provided legal counsel to Martin Luther King Jr., also represented black students, denied acceptance to various universities after they had finally been given legal access to them and on and on and on.

Could do a whole episode about him. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022. Still around 96 years young. Looks fucking great. Watched a presentation he gave just last year on YouTube. Dude spoke eloquently for over an hour. Dressed in a fitted suit. He looks like he's in better shape than I am. He's been married to the same woman for literally 70 years. Very inspiring. The good do not always die young. But I know this episode is not about Dr. Gray.

In March of 1973, the ad hoc advisory panel advised the secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, now the Department of Health and Human Services, to instruct the USPHS to give necessary medical care to surviving study participants. welfare, now the Department of Health and Human Services, to instruct the US PHS to give necessary medical care to surviving study participants. Yeah, I'm sure they're real fucking keen on that. Start trusting doctors. The Tuskegee Health Benefit Program was created and administered by the CDC's National Center for HIV, STI, and TB prevention. The Ad Hoc Advisory Panel finished a

report on April 28th, 1973. The panel concluded the Tuskegee study was one of several investigations that were taking place in the 1930s with the ultimate objective of venereal disease control in the U.S. Beginning in 1926, the U.S. Public Health Service, with the cooperation of other organizations, actively engaged in venereal disease control work. In 1929, the United States Public Health Service entered into a cooperative demonstration study with the Julius Rosenwald Fund and state and Local Departments of Health in the control of venereal diseases in six southern states. The syphilis control demonstrations took place from 1930 to 1932 and disclosed a high prevalence

of syphilis, 35 percent, in the Macon County survey. Macon County was 82.4 percent Negro. The cultural status of this Negro population was low and the illiteracy rate was high. In facts and documentation pertaining to Charge 1A, the panel wrote, 1. There is no protocol which documents the original intent of the study. None of the literature searches or interviews with participants in the study gave any evidence that a written protocol ever existed for this study. The theories postulated from time to time include the following purposes, either by direct statement or implication.

In the absence of an original protocol, it can be assumed that between 1932 and 1936, when the first reports to the study were made, the decision was made to continue the study as a long-term study. The annual report of the Surgeon General for 1935-36 included a statement, plans for the continuation of this study are underway. During the last 12 months,

success has been obtained in gaining permission for the performance of autopsies on 11 to 15 individuals who died. I wonder if they couldn't find a bunch of documentation just because it you know ended up in a paper shredder. People were like, oh this is fucked up we gotta we gotta hide this. We gotta get rid of this. December 16th, 1974, the lawsuit, the class action ends with a 10 million out-of-court settlement. Ten million dollars. If that sounds low to you, it does to me too. However, ten million dollars in 1974 is equivalent to about 65 million dollars today. This settlement was split into four parts.

Living syphilis group participants each got $37,500 equivalent to around $250,000 today. Sorry we fucked over for decades! Here's a quarter mil. That makes this cool, right? Heirs of deceased syphilis group participants, they got $15,000 equivalent to about $95,000 today. Living control group participants got $16, equivalent to about 105 grand today. Heirs of deceased control group participants got 5 grand, equivalent to a little over 32 grand today. On July 12, 1974, the National Research Act became law. The act created the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

This group identified the basic principles of research conduct and suggested ways to follow these principles. Later 1974 more regulations are passed that require researchers to get voluntary informed consent from all participants in studies done or funded by the Department of Health Education and Welfare. All DHEW studies using human subjects were now required to be reviewed by institutional review boards to decide if they met basic ethical standards. These standards, rules, and policies have been changed several times since and ways to further protect participants. 1975 study participants' wives, widows, and children were added to the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program. In the late 1970s, the

Ethics Advisory Board was formed to review ethical issues in biomedical research. They issued the 1979 so-called Belmont Report that summarized three ethical principles for human research, respect for persons, benifiance, and justice. From 1980 to 1983, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research reported on the adequacy and uniformity of the federal rules and policies and their implementation for the protection of human subjects in biomedical and behavioral research every two years.

1981, after the Belmont Report from the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, the HHS and the FDS revised their human subjects regulations. In 1991, 16 federal departments and agencies adopted the federal policy for the protection of human subjects. So right, it just keeps advancing. Federal policy for the protection of human subjects, the common rule, was published in 1991 and codified in 15 federal departments and agencies. The HHS regulations include four subparts. Subpart A, federal policy or the common rule, subpart B, additional protections for pregnant women,

human fetuses and neonates. Subpart C, additional protections for prisoners and subpart D, additional protections from your mom and dad, I mean for children. February of 1994, a symposium was held at the Cloudmoor Health Sciences Library in Charlottesville, Virginia. The symposium was named Doin' Bad the Name of Good the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and its Legacy. Result of the symposium was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee. The committee had their first meeting

in January of 96. Their goals were to persuade the president to apologize to the president US and develop a strategy to address the damages caused by the study to the psyche of African Americans and others. To rebuild the reputation of Tuskegee, to develop a clearinghouse on ethics and research and assemble training programs for health care providers. They issued their final report in May of 1996 and asked President Bill Clinton to apologize. In 1995 the Tuskekegee Health Benefit Program was expanded to include health and medical benefits. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission was created on October 3rd, 1995 by President Clinton. They were tasked to review regulations,

policies, procedures to protect research volunteers. The Commission was succeeded by the President's Council on Bioethics in 2001 and then the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Bioethical issues! So many big words in this episode in 2009. May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton apologizes. He issued that formal presidential, excuse me, apology for the Tuskegee study, and announced the establishment of the National Center for Bioethics and Research and Healthcare at Tuskegee University. By the time of President Clinton's apology, there were only eight survivors left alive. The following is a transcript of that apology.

Ladies and gentlemen, we fucked it. We really did. We fucked it when it came to the Tuskegee study. But today, today Slick Willie's gonna unfuck it. Uncle Bill's got you, baby. I'm gonna hold you. I'm gonna kiss away your troubles, all your worries, all your pain. So take a good look at my face.

You'll see my smile looks out of place. If you look closer, it's easy to trace the tracks of my tears. I need you. I need you. Someone hand me a saxophone. Slick Willie's about to take it home, baby. And of course that's not what Clinton said. That was a terrible impression.

I know. I tried, I tried my best. Here's what he said. That hurts to try and talk like that. Ladies and gentlemen, on Sunday, Mr. Shaw will celebrate his 95th birthday. I would like to recognize the other survivors who are here today and their families. Mr. Charlie Pollard is here. Mr. Carter Howard, Mr. Fred Simmons. Mr. Simmons just took his first airplane ride and he reckons he's about 110 years old. So I think it's time for him to take a chance or two. I'm glad he did and Mr. Frederick Moss, thank you sir.

I would also like to ask three family representatives who are here. Sam Doner is represented by his daughter Gwendolyn Cox. Thank you Gwendolyn. Ernest Hendon who's watching in Tuskegee is represented by his brother North Hendon. That's a badass name, North. Thank you sir for being here and George Key is represented by his grandson Christopher Monroe. Thank you Chris. I also acknowledge the families, community leaders, teachers and students watching today by satellite from Tuskegee. The White House is the people's house. We are glad to have all of you here today. I thank Dr. David Satcher for his role in this. I thank Congresswoman

Waters and Congressman Hilliard, Congressman Stokes, the entire Congressional Black Caucus, Dr. Satcher, members of the cabinet who are here, Secretary Herman, Secretary Slater, members of the cabinet who are here, Secretary Herman, Secretary Slater, great friend of freedom, Fred Gray, right, that lawyer we met earlier. Thank you for fighting this long battle all these long years. The eight men who are survivors of the syphilis study at Tuskegee are a living link to a time not so very long ago, and many Americans would prefer not to remember, but we dare not forget. It was a time when our nation failed to live up to its ideals, when our nation broke the

trust with our people that is the very foundation of our democracy. It is not only in remembering that shameful past that we can make amends and repair our nation, but it is in remembering that past that we can build a better present and a better future. And without remembering it, we cannot make amends and we cannot go forward. So today America does remember the hundreds of men used in research without their knowledge and consent. We remember them and their family members, men who were poor and African American without resources and with few alternatives.

They believed they had found hope when they were offered free medical care by the United States Public Health Service. They were betrayed. Medical people are supposed to help when we need care, but even once a cure was discovered, they were denied help and they were lied to by their government. Our government is supposed to protect the rights of its citizens. Their rights were trampled upon. Forty years, hundreds of men betrayed along with their wives and children along with the community in Macon County, Alabama, the city of Tuskegee, the fine university there in the larger African American community. The United States government did something that was wrong, deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment

to integrity and equality for all our citizens To the survivors to the wives and family members the children and the grandchildren. I say what you know No power on earth can give you back the lives lost the pain suffered the years of internal torment and anguish What was done cannot be undone, but we can end the silence We can stop turning our heads away We can look at you in the eye. Or excuse me, we can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people what the United States government did was shameful and I am sorry. The American people are sorry for the loss, for the years of hurt.

You did nothing wrong, but you were grievously wronged. I apologize and I'm sorry that this apology has been so long in coming. To Macon County, to Tuskegee, to the doctors who have been wrongly associated with the events there, you have our apology as well. To our African-American citizens, I'm sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist.

That can never be allowed to happen again. It is against everything our country stands for. And what we must stand against is what it was. So let us resolve to hold forever in our hearts and minds the memory of a time not long ago when making County Alabama so that we can always see how adrift we can become when the rights of any citizens are neglected, ignored, and betrayed. And let us resolve here and now to move forward together. The legacy of the study of Tuskegee has reached far and deep in ways that hurt our progress and divide our nation. We cannot be one America when a whole segment of our nation has no trust in America.

An apology is the first step and we take it with commitment to rebuild that broken trust. We can begin by making sure there is never again another episode like this one. We need to do more to ensure that medical research practices are sound and ethical, that the researchers work more closely with communities. Today I would like to announce several steps to help us achieve these goals. First, we will help to build that lasting memorial at Tuskegee, the school founded by Booker T. Washington, distinguished by the renowned scientist George Washington Carver, and so many others who advance the health and well-being of African Americans and all Americans is a fitting sight. The Department of Health and Human

Services will award a planning grant so the school can pursue establishing the Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care. The Center will serve as a museum of the study and support efforts to address its legacy and strengthen bioethics training. Second, we commit to increase our community involvement so that we may begin restoring lost trust. The study at Tuskegee served to sow distrust of our medical institutions, especially where research is involved. Since the study was halted, abuses have been checked by making informed consent and local

review mandatory in federally funded and mandated research. Still, 25 years later, many medical studies have little African-American participation and African-American organ donors are few. This impedes efforts to conduct promising research and to provide the best health care to all our people, including African-Americans. So today I'm directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, to issue a report in 180 days about how we can best involve communities, especially minority communities, in research and health care. You must.

Every American group must be involved in medical research in ways that are positive. We have put the curse behind us. Now we must bring the benefits to all Americans. Third, we commit to strengthen researchers' training in bioethics. We are constantly working on making breakthroughs and protecting the health of our people and vanquishing diseases. But all our people must be assured that their rights and dignity will be respected as new drugs, treatments and therapies are tested and used. So I am directing Secretary Shalala to work in partnership with higher education to prepare training materials for medical researchers. They will be available in a year. They will help researchers build on core ethical principles of respect for

individuals, justice, and informed consent, and advise them on how to use these principles effectively in diverse populations. Fourth, to increase and broaden our understanding of ethical issues and clinical research, we commit to providing postgraduate fellowships to train bioethicists, especially among African Americans and other minority groups. HHS will offer these fellowships beginning September of 1998. The promising students enrolled in bioethics graduate programs. And finally, by executive order, I am also today extending the charter of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission to October of 1999. The need for this commission is clear. We must be able to call on the thoughtful collective wisdom of experts and community

representatives to find ways to further strengthen our protections, excuse me, to further strengthen our protections for subjects in human research. We face a challenge in our time. Science and technology are rapidly changing our lives with the promise of making us much healthier but much more productive and much more prosperous. But with these changes we must work harder to see that as we advance we don't leave behind our conscience. No ground is gained and indeed much is lost if we lose our moral bearings in the name of progress. The people who ran the study at Tuskegee diminished the stature of man by abandoning the most basic

ethical precepts. They forgot their pledge to heal and repair. They had the power to heal the survivors and all the others and they did not. Today all we can do is apologize but you have the power for only you Mr. Shaw, the others who are here, the family members who are here with us in Tuskegee. Only you have the power to forgive. Your presence here shows us that you have chosen a better path than your government did so long ago. You have not withheld the power to forgive. Your presence here shows us that you have chosen a better path than your government did so long ago. You have not withheld the power to forgive. I hope today and tomorrow every American will remember your lesson and live by it. Thank you and God bless you. God damn what a speech. I gotta say, I miss speeches, eloquent speeches like that from

our political leadership. Caring speeches. Not full of fucking blame and partisan bullshit, but just like, you know, bringing people together, accepting that, you know, the government is fucked up, you know, trying to right wrongs. Man, I miss that shit. So many like to only remember Bill for the Monica Lewinsky affair, to write him off as a punchline, or to go, you know, full tin tin foil hat and frame him as some murderous Illuminati shill. I'm not even going to fucking try and justify that with a lengthy explanation. It's absurd. I've looked into all that.

It is based like nearly all conspiracy in America these days and nothing more than the imaginative speculation of the mentally unwell and the chronically hateful. In truth, Slick Willie was a president who spent more time speaking compassionately than he did aggressively shitting on anyone who spoke, you know, critically about him like some immature schoolyard bully. And for all the talk I constantly hear about fiscal conservatives, this lifelong liberal was the last US president to preside over a balanced federal budget. His administration achieved budget surpluses from fiscal years 1998 to 2001, the only budget surpluses the US had experienced since 1969. No one's done it since. But you know, word on the street is that the dirty libs spend all the money. I have good personal reasons to like Bill. He supported

and enacted policies to expand access to student financial aid, lower the cost of student loans that I desperately needed because after my freshman year due to some family financial constraints, I was entirely on my own. And if it wasn't for him fighting to expand Pell Grants and student loan access, I would have had to drop out of college. I was very nervous about it. I'll never forget protesting for that on campus, having some rich kids, you know, actually it was the group of young Republicans in Gonzaga doing the counter protest telling us that if we couldn't pay, we didn't deserve to be there. And these were kids I strongly doubt were working the hours I was working. Kids who I strongly assume came from family money. Definitely had that vibe. That protest randomly

influenced my comedic sensibility because I auditioned for an annual sketch comedic performance, this annual show called Waiting on a Femme, a Gonzaga that was popular on campus not long afterwards. And in one of the sketches, not having forgot about these counter protesters, I made fun of the president of the Young Republicans and Gonzaga so fucking hard

that that sad excuse for a grown ass man apparently cried like a little fucking baby and walked out of the president of the young Republicans in Gonzaga so fucking hard that that sad excuse for grown ass man apparently cried like a little fucking baby and walked out of the show and then was routinely laughed at the rest of the semester. And you know what? Good. I wish I would have fucking pushed that worthless condescending silver spoon fuck into a full on nervous breakdown. If those grants and also student loan expansion, you know, that wouldn't have happened, this podcast would not exist. And never thought about that until right now.

Life, when you come right down to it, it's just inherently very political. And it's so fucking sad how so many of us, myself included, in a lot of moments, we just rather bury our heads in the sand than just ever talk about it. We just get so fucking thin skin. Talk about snowflakes. We have the most snowflakes that have ever fucking existed in my lifetime right now when it comes to politics. I'm sure I'll get emails right now, oh I used to like you, oh when you liked America more. Just shut the fuck up. Just get out of here. This podcast would have never existed without that political fight, right? You can avoid hearing a lot of political opinions by

choosing what to listen to or what not to, but you can't avoid politics. It's all around us. It writes the rule book for the game of your life. It decides how you are able to play it. It provides the structure. It provides leadership that either creates a culture for which studies like the Tuskegee study can get approval, or instead it creates a culture where they're outlawed, disavowed, shut down. Hail fucking Nimrod. Get fired up. The National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Charter expired October 3rd, 2001.

But then an executive order creating the President's Council on Bioethics was issued November 28th, 2001 by George W. Bush. Unpopular opinion, but I missed a lot about him too. People focus on Bush leading America into a huge federal deficit, back into one, and on invading Iraq for nefarious reasons. And you know what? That's fair.

But did you know, and I bet you didn't, that President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, it's actually called the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, this program he launched in 2003 became the largest commitment by any nation in history to address a single disease focusing on treatment, prevention, and care in affected countries, not just the US. It was estimated just a few months ago that 26 million lives and counting around the globe have been saved specifically by this program's implemented policies. 26 million lives saved. Over six times as many lives saved as the total number of lives lost in both the Vietnam conflict and Operation Iraqi Freedom combined, counting both soldiers and all

civilians. Some Republicans clearly care about social programs. Some are global citizens, not isolationists. You know, they care about helping others around the world contrary to a lot of people's current opinions of conservatives. I just wanted to share a reminder that both Democrats and Republicans are very capable of doing great things and have done very great things. Politics doesn't have to suck. Doesn't have to be divisive. Let's have a new MAGA. Make America Gracious Again. And hail New Merit again. January 16, 2004. Ernest Hendon, the last Tuskegee study participant, passed away at the age of 96.

His dick was roughly a thousand years old. Come on! No, his dick was great. Hendon was in the control group of people who did not have syphilis. He died of natural causes at a hospital in Alabama. He was born in Roba, Alabama, back in 1907. His dad passed away in 1933. And then he continued to work on his family's farm He and his brother Louie helped their mom raise eight siblings Henan was drafted into the army in 1941 Served in Europe fought during World War two in 2001 He told the AP that he didn't know what he was getting involved with with this study

Quote they said it was a study that would do you good, but it sure didn't rest in peace Ernest Henan January 2009 the last widow of the THB program died. As of 2009, there was still 10 children of participants who were receiving medical and health benefits from the THBP. The President's Council on Bioethics Charter expired September 30th 2009. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues created November 24th of that year. Jumping all the way to July 7th 2022 now when Attorney Fred Gray awarded that Presidential Medal of Freedom I mentioned earlier. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, Presidential Medal of Freedom, highest honor a U.S. civilian can get.

Gray, 90 years old when he was given this award said in his statement, this award means in his statement, This award means a great deal to me, an African American civil rights lawyer who was born in the ghettos of Montgomery, Alabama. It speaks volumes to civil rights workers who have devoted their talents and resources toward improving the quality of life of Americans in this country. And it speaks directly to African Americans in general. When I filed the various civil rights cases from 1955 to date, I was concerned about African Americans receiving the same constitutional rights as all other Americans.

We have made substantial progress, but the struggle for the elimination of racism and for equal justice continues. I hope this award will encourage other Americans to do what they can to complete the task so that all American citizens will be treated the same equally and fairly in accordance with the Constitution. I love that last sentence. I hope this award will encourage other Americans to do what they can to complete the task so that all American citizens will be treated the same equally and fairly in accordance with the Constitution. I hope we can do more of that too. And this feels like a good spot for us to pop out of this timeline. Good job soldier, you've made it back. Barely.

Before I wrap up let's hear directly from some of the descendants of study participants. New York Times wrote about the survivors in a 1997 article. Yet their families, the wives and children they may have unwittingly exposed to the disease, have remained largely unseen and unheard, bearing in silence a legacy of anger and shame, as well as possible damage to their health. Albert Jolks Jr., son of a study participant said, you get treated like lepers. People think it's the scourge of the earth to have it in your family. It was one of the worst atrocities ever

reaped on by people, on people by the government. You don't treat dogs that way. Since 1975, the government has given lifetime medical benefits to 22 wives, 17 children, two grandchildren with syphilis. This is the participants of Health Benefits Program, formerly the Tuskegee Health Benefits Program. And the Times wrote, while the program treats physical ills, the family members' emotional wounds have gone largely unrecognized, some relatives say.

Carmen Head, granddaughter of participant Freddie Lee Tyson, said, I'm angry about it, very, very angry about it. It's a painful issue in my family. Lily Head, Carmen's mother, never knew if her father had syphilis or not. She said it was something to be ashamed of, so it wasn't talked about. We were really very disturbed

after we found out my father was a part of it. Martha Jernigan, whose cousins are descendants of study participants said, they thought we were animals, stupid, that we didn't know better. Times haven't changed when it comes to blacks. Herman Shaw, a study survivor, spoke about his wife's reaction to the study, saying, She was somewhat shocked, may I say, because it was a disease.

It wasn't anything that we'd heard about and nobody seemed to know about. Survivors and their families seemed reluctant to participate in the health benefits program. 106 men began receiving benefits in 1974. In 1975, only 50 wives were tested. 27 of them tested positive for syphilis. Some family members of study participants refused to be tested because they didn't trust the government. I don't blame them. Dr. Bill Jenkins, a statistician, uh, statistician, excuse me, uh, with the National Center for Health Statistics who tried to end the study told the New York Times, there's a tendency to believe that African Americans are reluctant to participate in research because of this one study. And I think that belittles the concerns of African Americans.

They are concerned about public health research because they're alienated from American society in any number of ways. And this study is the bellwether. It's much bigger than just this study. And we're going to have to do a lot more work than just apologize for this. One of the last survivors of the study was Charles Pollard. Charles told author James H. Jones for his book Bad Blood that he heard about the men getting free physicals at a schoolhouse. He recalled, so I went over and they told me I had bad blood and that's what they've been telling me ever since. They come around from time to time and

check me over and they say Charlie Charlie, you've got bad blood. Herman Shaw, a local farmer, also remembered hearing about a healthcare program, said, people said you could get free medicine for yourself and things of that kind, and they would have a meeting at Salmon Chapel at a certain date. Charles Pollard said, all I knew was that they just kept saying I had bad blood.

They never mentioned syphilis to me, not even once. They've been doctoring me off and on ever since then, and they gave me a blood tonic. Herman Shaw added, we got three different types of medicine, a little round pill, sometimes a capsule, sometimes a little vial of medicine. Everybody got the same thing. In 2017, Kimberly Whitley,

great-great-granddaughter of a study participant, said in an NBC article, we are here, we are alive, we need to be heard. We can't let what happened to my great-great-grandfather happen again. We're being taught and are constantly learning about the ethical implications of what we do and how to treat people with dignity and respect. And NBC wrote, until now the wives, sons, and daughters, great-great-granddaughters, and other relatives have remained in the shadows, largely unknown, unheard, and unseen. When some of

them relocated from Alabama to cities in the shadows, largely unknown, unheard and unseen. When some of them relocated from Alabama to cities in the North, they wrapped up their pain, unanswered questions, anger, emotional scars, and decades of shame and silence, and carried it with them. And what a terrible, terrible thing. To be abused by the very people, right, we look to in our lowest points. Imagine if your parent or partner or child had cancer

and you went to a clinic to have him treated. The only clinic you could afford. And for years doctors told you they were doing everything they could to save this person who you love so deeply. But then that person dies. And then many years later you find out they were never treated at all. They just like you had been lied to by doctors for years and those lies had to pain, suffering, and death, and now mistrust and anger as well. And then it takes years more to get any form of financial compensation, $250,000 for their life. Would that feel like enough? Would an additional apology, issued decades later, feel like enough?

Fuck no, it wouldn't. America is great. Sometimes. Other times America, both its politicians and its citizens, and sometimes even doctors, can be not so great at all and do some really shitty things. I truly believe that one day we're gonna look at these ICE raids, much like how we now look back at the Tuskegee study. Same kind of vibe. You know, we'll just find it fucking disgusting. All the people supporting it will be found to be on the on the wrong side of vibe. You know, we'll just find it fucking disgusting. All the people supporting it will be founded to be on the wrong side of history. I'm very confident in that.

And how does that exactly relate to this study? What's the point in doing episodes about historical atrocities if we can't learn from them and apply teachings to the present? How many people knew about the Tuskegee study for years and never spoke out about it? Right, they all had their reasons. They all sounded good, I'm sure, to them.

You know, maybe I just don't understand something that makes it okay. I don't know. I don't know a lot about it. Right? They all had their reasons. They all sounded good, I'm sure to them. You know, maybe I just understand something that makes it okay. I don't know. I don't know a lot about it. I don't know. I need the money. You know, what could I really accomplish if I said something? No one's gonna listen to me. I've used rationalizations like these plenty of times behind the scenes. Not to speak out about this or that. And I'm questioning that decision more and more as time goes on. You know, I don't want to push people away. I want to bring people in and make them curious and influence on. You know, I don't want to push people away. I want to bring people in and make them curious and influence them. You know, I want to influence people to do what I strongly feel is the right

thing is we learn things here. I mean, it's advertised as the cult of the curious. It's never been just a straightforward storytelling podcast, not ever. And it gets more and more important to me as I get older to try harder, to be better, to be a force of more good in the world. And I think that sometimes means, yeah, you just got to speak out more. I started this podcast with no real plan for it to become nearly as big as it got and then when it got big, you know, I was so grateful for how it changed my life and I still am but then at some point I think it started to feel more like a business, an obligation and less like a creative fun experiment in curiosity, you know, that it began as.

And instead of pushing back against certain aspects of the culture around me that I didn't agree with, I started allowing the weight of certain cultural tendencies to kind of just, uh, you know, bear down on me and, and kind of, I don't know, just zap a little bit of the joy out of it for me. And I'm working on pushing back the other direction. And, uh, I gotta say, it might not be good for my podcast ratings, but I can already tell it's good for my soul. I've always felt like an oddball. Felt like one when I started this. Still feel like one now. You know, when I started this, didn't feel like I fit in with any big political or

religious movements. Still don't. Still don't like how, you know, many will misinterpret my opinions through their own binary lenses. And for a while, fear of those misinterpretations, I think it led me to kind of start shutting a part of myself down. And now I'm trying to wake that part back up. You know, lately I've just, I've been truly inspired by so many other people sharing their true uncensored, unabashed selves, or at least appearing to. And my true self is, you know, extremely curious and also extremely critical

of what I see as a bunch of bullshit. I fucking love how many people I see online these days Speaking out about what they see as a bunch of bullshit. I love the outrage. I love going to concerts, hearing artists, Share what's been weighing on their hearts in between songs. Some people find that so annoying. I fucking love it. And it's exactly those kind of people who put an end to shit like the Tuskegee study. People not afraid to speak up, right? It's the ones who never say anything, who rationalize their silence. They're the ones who allow studies like that to go on for 40 fucking years. You know, the Tuskegee study serves as not only a reminder for researchers and doctors to always hold themselves to the very

highest ethical standards when it comes to human research, but also for the rest of us to say something when we see something wrong being done and not just stay quiet. And also fuck the institutionalized American racism that led to this specific atrocity. Team meat sack, all colors, all shapes, all genders, all sexual persuasions welcome other than animals and kids, all beliefs welcome other than those that see some members of team meat sack is less than and inherently wrong Make America gracious again. I like that for everybody Or maybe let's try and do that for the very first time Let's head to the takeaways Number one the discovery of penicillin the antibiotic cure for syphilis, was a happy

accident. In 1928, scientist Alexander Fleming returned to his lab after a vacation, found a moldy bacteria sample. That mold secreted sweet sweet mold juice, aka antibiotics that killed bacteria. Fleming published his remarkable findings, but no one seemed to care. He tried unsuccessfully to extract penicillin from the mold, sent his sample all over the world to see if anybody else could do it. And then penicillin would be first tested on a human subject in 1941 after other people could do it. The number two, in 1932, the United States Public Health Service began the Tuskegee study

of untreated syphilis in the Negro male. The purpose of the study was to record the natural history of untreated syphilis in black men aged 25 and older. None of the 600 participants, with and without syphilis, were told the true purpose of the study. When penicillin became widely available for public use, none of them were offered it in treatment. The government funded this highly unethical study for 40 years.

And when a PHS employee expressed his concerns about the study in 1966, he was ignored by many. The study did not end until 1972 when an AP reporter finally exposed the truth for the whole country and world to see. And that exposure and nothing else led the US government to do the right thing and end it. Number three, in 1969 the CDC reviewed the records of 276 men with syphilis from the treated and untreated groups. Seven men died as a direct result of syphilis. 154 men died of heart failure. And for many of them that heart failure may have been brought about by syphilis.

Others went blind, almost certainly infected partners that gave birth to stillborn babies and on and on. Number four, the last survivor of the Tuskegee study, Ernest Hendon, died January 16, 2004, at the age of 96. He was a member of the uninfected control group. And number five, new info, secret World War II penicillin operations. In the Netherlands, the Central Bureau for Fungal Cultures had the largest fungal collection in the world in the mid-20th century, including penicillium notatum per a 1937 list. Dr. Fleming had sent his strain to Johanna Westerdijk, the director of the bureau.

Then in February of 1942 the Nazis asked the bureau to send their strain of penicillium notatum to Germany and mentioned developing penicillin for medical use in the letter. The bureau lied said they no longer had it. for medical use in the letter. The Bureau lied said they no longer had it. Nazis pushed back and Westerdijk knew he could not refuse the Germans request but also did not want to help the Nazis make their soldiers healthier so he sent a strain that could not produce penicillin. The Netherlands would later take the production of penicillin underground with a company called the Netherlands Yeast and Spirit Factory in Delft. After Germans occupied the

Netherlands in 1940, NG and SF was still allowed to continue their operations. Then in early 1943, NG and SF executive officer F.G. Waller wrote to Westerdijk asking for penicillium strains that could produce penicillin. And in January of 1944, Westerdijk sent all of the Bureau's penicillium strains to the NG and SF. The Nazis didn't realize exactly what they were doing. The NG&SF would make four reports about the efforts, their efforts to produce penicillin. They tested 18 penicillium strains, found one with the greatest antibacterial activity to be P6. Scientists isolated an extract from P6, gave it a code name of Bacinol to keep it a secret from the Germans. In the summer of 1944, an NG&SF advisor met with an individual at the Central train station in Amsterdam, got

the most recent copy of the Swiss Medical Journal. He then secretly gave that copy to scientists at NG&SF. And that journal had an article about penicillin with details about growing penicillin in corn steep extract, which we mentioned earlier. The identification of the bacteria is susceptible to penicillin and other important information and the NGNSF isolated basinol using that info. Then scientists could not begin to mass produce penicillin without getting caught because they had a Nazi guard on site. Soon they started getting that Nazi drunk to keep him distracted, started using milk bottles to grow penicillium

and they continued production of basinol from July of 1944 to March of 1945, but they were not able to figure out if basenol was actually true penicillin until they were able to compare it to penicillin produced in Greenland once the Nazis have been beaten out of their country. And then they began marketing their penicillin after the war was over in 1946, saving a lot of lives that they would have otherwise lost had a bunch of scientists not risked their lives to start figuring out how to make it during their Nazi occupation and thus gotten a head start on mass producing this important medicine.

Scientists who also kept more of the powerful antibiotic out of Nazi hands. The Nazis did get their own penicillin during the war but in limited supplies thanks to allied air raids on production facilities and also thanks to some brave Dutch scientists discretion. Time Suck Top 5 Takeaways Secret deadly, uh, secret deadly medical testing on American citizens. The Tuskegee study has been sucked. Thanks to all the Bad Magic Productions team for helping make in Time Suck. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsay Cummins. Thanks also to Logan Keith helping to publish this episode. Signing merch for the store at badmagicproductions.com. Thank you to Olivia Lee for the initial research this week.

Also thanks to the All Scene Eyes moderating the Cold to the Curious private Facebook page. The Mod Squad does such a good job on Discord. All Scene Eyes do such a good job on Discord. AllC9s do such a good job on Facebook. Yeah, we got some great communities. And, you know, the Time Suck subreddit and Bad Magic subreddit, a lot of good shit there too. And now this week's Time Sucker updates. Updates! Get your Time Sucker updates!

First up, sexual predator sack Brendan Lastname redacted for reasons that will soon become obvious. Sent a truly disgusting update into Bojangles at TimeSuckerPodcast.com with the subject line of I may now be a predator. This fucking sick piece of shit wrote, Mr. Cummins, I am torn between being ecstatic for finally having a reason to write into the updates and enraged for being Cummins lot I suppose you to thank me because I granted your wish Here's a story. I have a part-time gig as a kids Brazilian jujitsu and MMA instructor in Okinawa, Japan That's pretty badass now I was listening to the University of Cosmic Intelligence episode after walking into my studio expecting to be the only teacher in that day

Normally, I don't listen in time suck in public for fear of being cummins lot but I thought fuck it I have some time I'm cleaning while I'm getting ready for kids class. While I was setting everything up you were right in the middle of saying full volume so go get it get those kids get them carpe diem seize those kids and fuck them. At the exact moment another teacher unexpectedly walks to the door and shoots me this look of, what the hell are you listening to? Now I should emphasize that me and this other instructor don't get along.

I mean, we've worked together for three years and have had maybe four actual conversations. The tension was palpable. I stumbled out something to the effect of, uh, it's a podcast, and rapidly changed topics. Jesus Christ, I already need to be mindful of how I talk and interact with children in class. Now I have to worry about the other teacher thinking, is he a predator? So thank you for that asshole. I never thought I'd be Cummins Lawd, but here we are. It's inevitable when you're a time sucker, I suppose. I do want to say that I hopped onto Time Suck a bit late, maybe around 2021. I've listened to all the episodes and I've scared to death as well. I'm impressed to hear how much you've grown in every aspect. You've developed a passion and purpose for

yourself and the entire Bad Magic community. That's amazing. From what you've shared about yourself and your journey, it has not always been easy. I'm at least 10 years younger than you, but I think I can speak on behalf of all longtime listeners that I'm proud of you and never and can never fully express my appreciation for you. That's so nice. Lindsay and the entire Bad Magic team. Now take my three out of 5 stars and have a great fucking day. Signed definitely not a predator despite my questionable listening choices, Brendan. Well Brendan, there's definitely longtime listeners who

are not proud of me. Who think I've gone to the dark side with my evolution. But I appreciate what you say so much. And thanks for sharing a moment that for sure will haunt you. And yeah, and truly thanks for the kind words at the end. I'm sure I sound like a narcissist to some when I read what people write about me, and that's fine. You know, I do like it. It's nice to be, you know, called out sometimes as well. But also yes, nice to be commended.

And I hope it just serves as a reminder to anyone listening to share similar sentiments with other people in your lives. Right? It reminds me to share meaningful compliments with my kids, my wife, my parents. I'm so grateful to have a good relationship with, you know, Lindsay and the kids. And my parents too. You know, I hope I build a... specifically I think a lot about my kids and Lindsay. I hope I build all three of them up and, you know, that being commended for good behavior helps all of them feel good about their journeys and and their paths you know I think it does. Next up, Whole Name Redacted, a sweet and funny sack who's

been through a lot. Sent a message with a subject line of my father joins cults. Are you intrigued? I was. It's a wild ride. Anonymous wrote hello suck master supreme lord of dark humor most high his holiness of knowledge who has not slammed his dick in a door. Oh, not yet. That's actually, that'd be so fucking terrible. After all that I know it'd be funny for you guys. If that actually happened to me, oh my God. In the university of cosmic intelligence suck. You asked if any of us knew anyone who got into some weird cult shit during the

pandemic and boy howdy, do I have a story for you. So my father has always you know had mental health issues. He has basically run through the whole DSM-5 at this point and no one has been able to figure out what the hell is wrong with him. Prior to the pandemic he was coping fairly well, had found a medication regime that worked keeping pretty stable, but then we entered lockdown and shit hit the fan big time. He became paranoid, erratic, irrational, just generally a shitty person. Me and all of my siblings came to my mom individually without talking to each other beforehand and basically told her either he leaves or I find a new place to live. She brought this to him and he agreed to move out and stayed as parents to do

family therapy to try and work the shit out. We went through a couple of months of shopping for therapists, finally found one who was action oriented, focused on our specific goals. After several weeks of regular therapy, my father's not getting better. He's now accusing me of turning everyone against him and conspiring with the therapist to split the family apart. Mind you, I'm 16 at this time. He starts to seek therapy elsewhere because he also believes that our therapist is attempting to make everyone hate him so she can keep us coming into sessions. Fast forward a few months, my mom gets a message from my father saying he's

joined a new men's support group that's supposed to heal him as a man. He had bought some materials and gotten appointed a sponsor to help coach him to be a new man. Turns out he had in fact not joined a therapy group, but an offshoot of Scientology, Jesus Christ. Luckily I joined a cult during COVID as well, the Cult of the Curious. And I'd recently listened to the Scientology episode, which led me to recognize the L. Ron Hubbard bullshit my dad was buying into. I told mom everything I learned from your podcast, how Scientology operates. She immediately jumped into action, froze all of our bank accounts and credit

cards, all the ones she could. I helped her to reset all the passwords, got my siblings and I new phone numbers and new phones, disabled any tracking systems, and we changed all of our door locks. Basically, we spent 36 hours locking down our whole world. Even though we moved as fast as we did and caught it so early, there was a credit card fraudulently taking out my mom's name the day we learned about my father joining this cult. For weeks after, strange vehicles would occasionally drive by very slowly or park by our house. Mind you, we live in a fairly small community where people are not just casually driving to the neighborhood for no reason. When my mom

told my father about all this, he sent some threatening messages to her that disappeared off her phone later. Her phone did not have anything set up to do that. I saw the messages. I know they were there, but then poof they were gone. After that, my siblings and I cut off all contact with my dad. It was clear he had gotten sucked into the crazy world and we did not want to be dragged down with him. I believed he stopped going to this support group a bit later, but we know from the suck you don't just get to quit Scientology. However, a few years later while I was away for college, my mom messaged me saying that my dad had

informed her that he had joined a new men's therapy group and would be leaving for a retreat in Mexico. She looked up the group. Wouldn't you know it? Another cult. Thankfully, we were all removed enough from him that we were able to laugh at the absurdity of my cult hopping father. I don't know what he's up to now or what new cult he's sampling to the moment. I don't keep in contact with him. I've grown so much as a person without him in my life. He really spiraled off the deep end after kovat and became a very shitty person who did some pretty shitty things I won't go into because this email is already longer and girthier than I planned if you read this on the show Please keep it anonymous I've learned so much about the internet safety or about internet safety after my brush with Scientology and

Prefer to be a ghost on the internet not to sound too tinfoil hat, but you never know who's listening. I want to say thank you for all you do and inadvertently helping to save us from Scientology. The work you do helps add a bit of education and critical thinking into an often ignorant world. Keep filling our noggin with knowledge anonymous. Well anonymous, holy shit. Good on you for being able to have a sense of humor at a young age, no less. About something, you know, pretty fucking dark and tragic. good on you for recognizing you can't fix this problem I hope your dad is someday someday able to get the help he needs but you know is

that you know what led him into joining the cults you know how much can be blamed on mental illness how much can be blamed on just you know bad personal choices that fall outside the purview of mental illness? Thankfully, it sounds like you have an awesome mom and Awesome siblings. I hope this experience I don't know Maybe it'll help you help somebody else someday help you empathize in a way you otherwise wouldn't be able to help you Possibly pull somebody else out of a cult like darkness and who knows maybe at some point in the future your dad will reach

Out again, and you'll be able to share some logic that will he'll actually hear. You never know. Keep shining a rational light in this too often darkly ignorant world, Anonymous. And now one more from a huge fucking crybaby and a terrible human being, Lucien. Not sure if they want their last name used so I'm gonna leave it out. They wrote, they're great, Dear Sockmaster, Moshmouth Supreme, emotional bully Dan. There have been a number of times on the podcast that have caused my allergies to go out of control and embarrassingly all on strangers lawns. What are you doing on strangers lawns so much? Most recently was a call to action which I suppose requires some explanation. I will not apologize

for the length nor the girth. Prepare thyself. Why is prepare thyself a lot funnier than prepare yourself? I like thy and thou, it just cracks me up. Anyway, other episodes that made me particularly emotional run along the subject matters of transgender and identity and your thoughtful advocacy of the family LGBTQIA plus community when other meat sacks write in about their and or their family members and friends experiences being closeted and the struggles they faced. You expressed such genuine concern for them and rally in your defense at Team Meat Sack. I came out as non-binary in bumfucked nowhere rural north Minnesota.

Not exactly the most supportive environment to be sure, but my depressed anxiety ridden ass could not deny my reality anymore. But with the help of a few close friends, I was able to truly embrace who I am. And moving to the Twin Cities area and being exposed to a lot of other queer folks helped. And being properly medicated. Take your meds, meat sex. That's about five years ago. What does this have to do with your call to action? Well today one of my co-workers came out to me as a trans woman. I was making her a pride bracelet, asked if she wanted a specific flag when she said a rainbow one and a trans one. I asked if she wanted any pronouns on it she her so I

asked if those were her preferred pronouns and that led to a day-long text stream figuring out who what she was comfortable sharing this info with and letting her know she was not alone knowing a few other trans and gender queer co-workers aside from being one myself she gave me the okay to tell our bosses whom are super supportive of the LGBTQIA plus community, with at least one of them being a part of it. Later on, she thanked me for helping her. She didn't think she would have had the courage

to go far as we did. I am genuinely so happy for her and will continue to support her in any way I can. I had not realized how important it was to me to be able to be a safe space slash person for other LGBTQIA plus people. It's such a small simple thing but it's so hugely important. Normally I can't even watch the news because it gives me overwhelming anxiety.

After this experience remembering your call to action I'm feeling more brave for standing up for what I truly believe in and for others in my community I want to do more to help. As for crying on strangers lawns well I work as a mosquito control applicator. Oh yeah that makes more sense. And I listen to do more to help. As for crying on strangers lawns while I work as a mosquito controlled applicator. Oh Yeah, that makes more sense. And I listen to your podcasts while I work. Thankfully I'm fully decked out in the sexiest PPE and you can't really see my face So you can't really tell that my face is leaking many different fluids and people usually don't talk to me while I work So my voice cracking would not be a dead giveaway that I'm crying

Someone might catch on. Cummins law of another kind perhaps. Anyway, this podcast gives me a lot of feelings. Mostly good. Not that kind of good, you dirty little piggy. If we had five stars, wouldn't change a thing. I talk about time suck and scared to death to anyone with ear holes, hoping to spread them to anyone who's actually listening. Keep on making me cry on strangers lawns. Keep on sucking, Lucien. Also, could not stop singing the dinosaur bone song when I went to the oddities and curiosities expo and doing a dumb little dance while I sang. Lucian, good on you. Keep doing your little dinosaur dance. Yeah, sometimes

we see ourselves as needing help and forget how much that we can help others. Right? Like sometimes we forget how the smallest gesture can help others so much that we can be an important person in someone's life with just the littlest thing. You know, you held out your hand just for one day to someone feeling anxious. Feeling anxious about just being themselves at the fucking job. You know, at one point in my life, I was one of those people who would see a few shows like TV shows or whatever, you know, in a row that featured queer characters. And I would think some version of,

why are they pushing this down our throats? I was a fool. I was lazy. I was being a fucking knee jerk, illogical asshole. Wanting to just be who the fuck you are is not pushing shit down anyone's throats. On a TV show, not at work,

it's just one equal seat at the table Do you think Lucien when you see show after show of nothing but straight characters? Do you think something long of like why they fucking pushing their agenda down my throat? Yeah, I doubt it's this fucking crazy It's crazy either way Thank you. Thank you for being somebody who wants to help and not needlessly hurt We have so many people who get so annoyed about the dumbest fucking shit that doesn't matter and I'm often one of them. You know I've had to work on re-grounding myself. I have to work on it all the time. I still have such anger inside my family. The

kids joke about it. Like they just, I'm glad they can joke about it. They can joke because it's not usually directed at them. You know they just know I have deeper anger and a lot of times now I'll start getting angry and then I'll just They can judge, because it's not usually directed at them. You know, they just know I have a deep rooted anger. And a lot of times now I'll start getting angry and then I'll just think like, why am I, why am I getting upset? Why am I really upset? Is it them or is it me? And you know what? Sometimes it is them. You know, I told a guy at a coffee shop recently that he was being a fucking dick. Taking a Zoom meeting at full volume with no headphones.

And he didn't like it. And he got mad. And, you know, and then he packed up his shit like a spoiled brat leaving somebody's birthday party and you know he left the coffee shop. Oh and I did scream at a parent a couple weeks ago at hoop fest in Spokane to shut the fuck up and sit down for accusing a girl on my daughter's basketball team of being a boy when she knew damn well it wasn't. This person's actually in the queer community. And then I stared down her husband and that could have gone badly but it didn't I don't regret it. Look, I probably yell at people in public too much. And some days can lead to me getting my ass kicked again. But that's not the point.

Point is, a lot of other times, most times I think, why am I upset? They're not hurting anybody. They're not the problem. I am the problem here. And anyone who would be mean to your co-worker for living what they feel is their truth, a truth that affects them fucking 0% in any meaningful way, they're the problem. And they can go drown in the green discharge at the bottom of a bag of syphilitic dicks. Yeah, you'll never regret treating a kind person with kindness. When I look back at my life, I'm getting a little older now, I don't think about like being kind to people and be like,

man, I wish I would have been a fucking dick there. But when I look back at myself being a dick I think, why was I like that? Oh I could have handled that so much better. Yeah, so good for you. Being sweet to a sweet soul. So keep being sweet you son of a bitch. Keep dancing. Keep talking about dinosaur bones. Love you Lucian. Let's get out of here. Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Please rate and review the show if you haven't already. Please and thank you. Please don't launch a four decade long unethical and wildly racist medical study this week. It's

crazy. Just tell people if you're a doctor or medical researcher. Or tread very lightly when it comes to medical advice if you're not. And keep on sucking. I know I was all over the place talking about a lot of different stuff today, but if you were able to take one thing away from today's episode, I hope it was that your dad's dick probably literally dripping with syphilis right now, as is your mom's butthole. Yeah, because your parents love butt sex and they're not faithful to one another and they don't use protection because they're filthy fucking animals. Dirty green infected discharge dripping out of some of their most sacred holes. But on a positive note, I have heard that

your parents do love them sweet sweet dinosaur bones! Dinosaur bones, yeah! We want to see them! Dinosaur bones! Alright! Yeah! Where can we see them? Huh. Yeah, there's more to it, this dinosaur bone song. Oh yeah.

Mmm mmm.