Miss Evers' Boys

From my perspective as a professor of nursing, I would say the movie depicted well ethical issues of the most serious type. In this fact-based story, nurse Eunice Evers (Alfre Woodard) was drawn into the Tuskegee syphilis research study by promises that treatment would be coming, hopefully in six months to a year. Her responsibilities included recruiting African American subjects. They were screened for being syphilis positive and then brought into the research study without full disclosure that no actual effective treatment was being provided. Even when penicillin became available, "Miss... more

It's no secret that Hollywood has backed off of traditional socially conscious dramas. Oh, sure, issues of race and class are often touched on in cinematic releases, but in recent years, it has been pretty much up to cable channels such as HBO and TNT to produce meaty fact-based dramas with socio-political heft. We can only be thankful that someone has picked up the slack and that such work is still being done. "Miss Evers Boys," a dramatization of what has become the now-scandalous Tuskegee Negro Syphilitic Study, is a case in point. It is as powerful an indictment of racism as you are... more

Unfortunately, the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphillis in the Negro Male", which began in 1932 in Alabama, is strong proof that clinical studies were not created equal. In this experiment, poor African American males were not treated for syphillis and not told of their true condition. When penicillin became available as a treatment, the subjects were not afforded the option of getting the shots. (NOTE: Depending on the stage of syphillis, penicillin may not be a safe treatment option) As a result of unethical treatment on the part of the experimenters in this study, the US National... more