Coronavirus is the latest health atrocity to hit the black community

The neglect of the health black people in Orlando and elsewhere that has been exposed by the coronavirus pandemic is shameful, but not new.

Historically black people have not only been underserved by health-care professionals. Black people have been exploited and tortured by doctors and other medical professionals who pledge to “Do no harm.”

Here are a few of barbaric medical atrocities perpetrated on African Americans:

·        In the 19^th century Dr. J. Marion Sims developed surgical techniques used today in gynecology by practicing on slave women without any painkillers.

·        The Tuskegee Experiment started in 1932 and continued to 1972. A total of 600 black sharecroppers were tricked into participating in the experiment to study syphilis. Nearly 400 men in the experiment had the disease. Researchers made no effort to treat them after penicillin was determined to cure the sickness. Ultimately many of the men died from syphilis; 40 wives were infected with the disease and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.

·        Cancer treatments being used today were developed from cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, in 1951. The cells were taken without her permission and her family has received no compensation from the treatments developed from Mrs. Lack’s cells.

·        Between 1960 and 1971 90 black patients who went to Cincinnati General Hospital for cancer treatment were bombarded with extreme doses of radioactivity to see how humans would be affected in a nuclear war. The tests had been ordered by the federal Department of Defense. Most of the patients did not give their consent to be used as human guinea pigs. In some cases, consent forms were forged.

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