Melissa Harris-Perry compares Tavis Smiley to Tuskegee syphilis study’s black nurse

Tuskegee : AL : USA | Dec 16, 2012 at 11:12 AM PST BY Herbert Dyer, Jr.

Melissa Harris-Perry erupts live on her show over guest “insensitive” remarks about poverty in America.  (Youtube video)

This morning on her MSNBC weekend gabfest, Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry compared radio and TV talk-show host Tavis Smiley to the black nurse who helped administer the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (TSE) from 1932 to 1972.

Sponsored by the federal Public Health Service, the TSE remains America’s longest-running bio-medical research experiment. Researchers followed, but did not treat, the progression of syphilis in 600 black men from Alabama for its entire 40-year run. To attract men to the study, promises of free health care and burial insurance were offered. Neither the men nor their families were ever told they had syphilis. And, as stated, they were never treated for the disease despite the discovery of penicillin as an effective treatment and cure for syphilis in the late 1940s.

The TSE was conducted at the famed Tuskegee Institute founded by one of America’s premier black leaders, Booker T. Washington. One of the more instrumental implementers of the TSE was Eunice Rivers, a black nurse who was involved in and administered the program’s every aspect, from recruiting possible subjects to drawing their blood.

It is no secret that there has been some very “bad blood” flowing between, on one side, Dr. Harris-Perry, and on the other, Tavis Smiley and Princeton Professor Dr. Cornel West. Indeed, I have written about their ongoing feud in the past. The attention has mainly been focused on Drs. West and Harris-Perry. Today, however, Dr. Harris-Perry exponentially ratcheted up her critique of Smiley by directly comparing his role in the Wells Fargo bank’s now defunct “wealth building” program to nurse Rivers’ function during the TSE.

via Melissa Harris-Perry compares Tavis Smiley to Tuskegee syphilis study’s black nurse.