PROS: One of only a few somewhat comprehensive books available to look at this subject. Many sources are cited for further reading by those interested.
CONS: Multiple:
DISTRUST OF SOURCES: She undermined any trust I had in her use of sources, or interpretation of sources, besides too often not providing sources.
For instance, she writes on page 134 that “Some libraries and physicians still possess books bound in the skins of African Americans” and gives as a source, a webpage[...] When one visits this site, Larson mentions books made in England prior to 1832, and two others, in 1852 and 1951. He does not mention race at all, stating that these books were often made from the skins of executed criminals, (and French aristocrats, and a mistress to a French novelist), thus my impression is that these were likely primarily of white people.
Or consider that she states, p117, she believes black cadavers are over-represented in dissecting labs, despite stating that the experts in the field deny this, yet she fails to cite data that would refute these experts. Also, she studiously ignores the data that is available, for instance as Iserson points out in Death to Dust, black bodies and black organ donation are both under-represented. Iserson cites two studies supporting his statements.
Or page 139, she asserts as truth that there are more black body parts being used, without one citation to support this claim. She later cites a book about a survey regarding corneas, but IF this is her source regarding the various organs, the reader is privy only to the finding of bias concerning corneas in Los Angeles, due to presumed consent laws, as this is about corneas only, not all other organs or bodies, AND, is in Los Angeles, not other cities or towns).
She does quote Thucydides a few pages later…
Page 147: "so little trouble do men take in search for the truth," Thucydides, "so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand."
On Page 60 she recounts the experiments Thomas Jefferson made on his slaves, stating unambiguously that “Only after they escaped illness did Jefferson inject his white family at Monticello.” However, she lists as a source, a letter from Jefferson, quoted in a book by Robert Halsey, cited in a book by Savitt, a book she refers to throughout her book. (It is unclear if she is citing Savitt or Halsey as her source here, or both. If Savitt, she is now two sources removed. In any case, more worrisome is that she does not include Savitt’s footnote, that there is “ambiguity” in determining if Jeffersons’s white family was inoculated only after, and that he believes this to be the case because of the cold language of “subjects” thus “suggesting” blacks were inoculated before whites.
These and other examples make it difficult to know what to trust in this book.
LIMITED PROPORTION OF EXPERIMENTATION INFORMATION: The majority of this book is not what is purported in the subtitle, that is, experimentation. The majority of the book includes other concerns, such as bodies on display in sideshows, dissection rooms, eugenics, a convoluted suggestion of genocide, bias in employment based on genetics, the myth of the crack baby, etc…, If entitled “Bias against Black Bodies” then the subject matter would more appropriately match.
MISLEADING JUXTAPOSITION: On page 5 Washington lists many university programs that have been suspended by OPRR. The prior sentence includes “research that abused black Americans” and the following sentence includes “many studies enrolled only or principally black Americans.” She does not list her source for this information, making it difficult to check. However, one of the universities suspended was “even John Hopkins,” but the suspension she likely referred to occurred as a result of the death of a white woman. I found on my own internet search a threat of suspension regarding Yale [...] , but if they were suspended, she needs to list the citation.
APARTHEID: Presenting only studies (if accurate representations) that reveal over-representation of blacks, or abuse of blacks, but not providing a wider perspective, for instances of over-representation of women, or Jews, or others, or the lack thereof, does reveal just that, abuse and racism, but does not prove apartheid, that is, a systemic, or official policy of segregation. Maybe Apartheid is the right word, but she must make the case.
She does write of Cotton Mather having a grenade thrown in his house, p72, or, on p66 Sims giving ether to white men to knock their white wives unconscious for sex, but these only hint of a broader picture that could be painted.
Washington states that some 18th and 19th century white physicians and statesmen worked to promulgate the belief that one could look different and yet not be inferior. However rather than name some of these white physicians she immediately writes of two African-Americans instead, p94.
THESIS: In her epilogue she states for her book to have the most value, blacks need to be more willing to see doctors and engage in studies despite the past abuses. According to Washington, this participation is problematic because of the justified fear blacks have of doing so, “black iatrophobia” page 21. While providing some examples of nineteenth century fears, this justification for her book is lacking in any recent surveys of such fears. How prominent are blacks fears of night riders? Of grave-robbing for the dissection table? Tuskagee has likely caused fears, but then we have books about that already. Do we know if the Tuskagee revelations affected whites’ trust in studies?
How significant is blacks fear of abuse by a doctor in blacks under-utilization of the health system today? She does not address this question. Might not economics play a much larger role?It therefore comes across as an insincere justification, a noble sentiment providing camouflage for some other purpose.
On page 179, she states “it is a mistake to attribute African Americans’ medical reluctance to simple fear generated by the Tuskagee Syphlis Study,” and goes on to list quotes from four newspapers from doctors who do so. What a perfect opportunity to include some surveys of black fears, and knowledge of other past abuses, but she does not provide even one reference.
MIXING ISSUES: Washington introduces the book’s name on page 12, describing the current health of blacks compared to whites as such a wide gap as to be a medical “apartheid.” Page 134 she describes the African American book skins as “medical racism.” (Perhaps she attempts to tie these two issues together by her thesis above, that racism has lead to fear, has lead to health gaps, that is, apartheid.)
Subtilted “Black Americans” she reviews much of what happened in South Africa, and other countries.
NUMBERS GAME: Typically, as is appropriate, Washington uses percentages to show bias or racism, such as the much higher percentage of blacks in prison compared to the percentage in the general population. Yet, when refuting myths about black people she resorts to absolute numbers, for instance, page 203 she points out most women on welfare are not black. Myth safely refuted, she then provides the more meaningful data, that black women constitute 6% of the population but represent one third of those on AFDC. She resorts to absolute numbers again refuting racist mythology about teen pregnancy on page 207, but here, she does not provide the more meaningful data of percentages.
GRATUITOUS WESTERN BASHING: Page 79: in 1916 Benga committed suicide with that ubiquitous icon of Western technological achievement the handgun.
SPECULATION: p136, In regards to medical students, apparently prior to 1920, and the black cadavers, “There were photos of the bodies posed an undignified attitudes that accentuated whites dominance over them.” Besides not providing perspective (such as similar photos of students with white cadavers), she misses the psychological phenomenon of fear of death and discomfort of cutting into the dead, and the attempt to assert dominance over fear of death through the use of gallows humor, but why mention this when speculation about dominance over blacks is at hand?
PHYSICS: Yet another victim of misunderstanding the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: Page 153: Washington unfortunately compares paradoxes of quantum physics in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as being similar to poorly done research.
LEAVE THE READER GUESSING: Page 192: she recounts that Dr. Harry Haiseldon killed six babies in 1915 for being defective although she does not describe their race. However she also states that parents began openly to recruit doctors to kill their children who were born with defects and doctors came forward with their own proud confessions of infanticide, but again she does not comment on the race of these parents or of the children.
HAVING IT BOTH WAYS: Multiple times I felt she wanted to have an issue both ways, for instance, Page 200: Washington writes "the proliferation of birth control clinics that were clearly aimed at an African-American population falls neatly within the UN definitions" of genocide. Yet she also states "although the proliferation of birth control clinics was unethical, the general rise of reproductive clinics in black neighborhoods did not constitute genocide because whatever the intent of the whites who introduce them such measures were widely embraced by black women.” Is she saying the UN definition is wrong (then say so?), or, less generously, is she trying to indicate that it is actually genocide (by UN criteria), but she herself won’t say so as a way of avoiding taking responsibility for such a charge. Also, while on one hand refuting the charge of genocide on the basis of black women wanting the pill, she calls such choice “quasi-voluntary.”
INCONSISTENCY: p340 Washington writes of a misleading conclusion from a VA study on AZT, that it did not help blacks, leading physicians to not prescribe it to blacks for fear of side effects, a false conclusion made in part on having too small of a group of blacks in the study. Yet, multiple times she holds out as examples of racism studies that include a higher percentage of blacks than that found in the population without discussing whether or not such numbers were needed for statistical significance.
WEAK ARGUMENTS: on page 342, Washington discusses that protease inhibitors were often withheld from lower socioeconomic groups, as poor compliance could increase drug resistance, but supports her criticism of this with a quote from an African American Physician, "my patients with drug problems are all compliant… It's ridiculous to withhold medication from drug users on the assumption that they won’t adhere to the treatment schedule: who understands the importance of taking drugs on time better than an addict?" (Seriously?)
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Infant mortality of African Americans is twice that of whites, and black babies born in more racially segregated cities have higher rates of mortality. The life expectancy of African Americans is as much as six years less than that of whites.Highlighted by 793 Kindle readers- American university research centers have historically been located in inner-city areas, and accordingly, a disproportionate number of these abuses have involved experiments with African Americans.Highlighted by 729 Kindle readers
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A Video Review of Medical Apartheid
Maurice Miles Martinez
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So Good I had to Reference it in my book: The Real Wakandas of Africa!!!
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2021
This book was so good that I had to reference it in my book: The Real Wakandas of Africa: Dr. John Henrik Clarke vs. Herman Cain (By Maurice Miles Martinez). What was the extent of medical experimentation on African and African American people? Did it start and stop with the well-known Tuskegee experiment? Medical Apartheid will take you through the relatively unknown history of medical experimentation on Black people. It will show you how entrenched many American medical schools were in the use of Black people to develop many different medical cures. Sometimes this involved chaining enslaved African women and performing surgery on them without anesthesia in order to develop widely accepted modern surgical practices. At other times, it involved tricking Black men to take a seat at a medical facility, having medical staff hold them down, and then surgically removing their jaw without anesthesia. Medical Apartheid is a damning critique of the American medical system. Many are aware of the Tuskegee experiment where Black men who had been infected with syphilis were enrolled in an experiment and were not given the cure, penicillin, when it was discovered. Instead, the disease was allowed to run its course. Harriet Washington shows that this was not an isolated incident. Through references to medical school after medical school, she demonstrates that Black people were experimented on and provides an extensive array of data to support her arguments. For example, Black women were forced to have hysterectomies when they went to the hospital for completely unrelated medical issues.To add to this, Washington shows that African Americans still face unequal medical treatment. She also notes that many medical studies are conducted today on Africans that would not be approved in other parts of the world. Medical Apartheid will leave you wondering how a people could be treated so poorly. It will leave you with a question: who created this arrangement? And once you’re left with this question, please pick up a copy of my book: The Real Wakandas of Africa: Dr. John Henrik Clarke vs. Herman Cain (By Maurice Miles Martinez). My book not only details the history of oppression against African people through the systems of colonization and slavery, but also the rich aspects of African history that existed before colonization and slavery. Africans performed surgery on the eye to remove cataracts 700 years ago. Enslaved African doctors taught Americans how to inoculate people against smallpox. African doctors performed successful cesarean sections with the use of antiseptics hundreds of years before antiseptics were known about by European or American doctors. Africans authored the first medical text 3,600 years ago which diagnosed and treated diseases. Africans also built buildings that stood 48 stories tall and contained more stone than 30 Empire State buildings. They built a wall 10,000 miles long upon which I also wrote a book called: The Great Wall of Africa: The Empire of Benin’s 10,000 Mile Long Wall (by Maurice Miles Martinez). Certainly, Medical Apartheid is an important starting point of discussion. I highly recommend this book for all people. Please pick up a copy today!
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2021
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