January 25, 2007Medical Apartheid
Harriet Washington wrote a book called Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. It tells tales of unethical medical practices and experimentation that targeted blacks, prisoners and the poor. One was the Tuskegee Experiment where 400 black men with syphilis were studied over a period of 40 years, believing they were being treated when in fact they were not. The study was well known because it was reported on in medical journals. Many of these men died horrible deaths, but only two people objected. One was a physician, Dr. Schatz, who wrote, “I’m shocked and astonished that you are permitting these men to continue dying of a treatable disease.” He received no response.
Another objection was raised by a low-level Public Health Interviewer Peter Buxton, who questioned the experiment at the risk of his job. He wrote many letters, after which the doctors called him into a room where they all lectured him, explaining the scientific process and why they were right to do this. Buxton left public health, went to law school, and through his entire three years of law school kept writing these letters. When he got no response, when they gave him the same silent treatment Dr. Schatz had gotten, he called a journalist friend and the AP ran the story, which is how the study ended.
One of the lame excuses we use for not speaking up is, “no one else is saying anything.” It’s easy to trick ourselves into thinking the majority knows what’s right. History has proven that isn’t true. For the hundreds who knew and stayed silent, only two dared speak the truth. But thanks to the one who spoke and persisted, the abuse was discontinued. One person (you) can make a difference.
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Thanks for continuing to send stories and quotes that are very relevant to my life.
I have been struggling for about 6 months with how to Speak Strong to my sister who lives out of state about her alcoholism. I tried as best I could in the spirit of Speaking Strong not to be mean, but sometimes the truth hurts anyway. To keep silent just because “no one else was saying anything” just didn’t feel right. I hope that some day she will thank me for Speaking Strong.
I have another relative that is undergoing cancer treatment and the quote from the Starbucks CEO was very inspirational and I passed it along.
Thanks!
Comment by Susan — January 25, 2007 @ 1:23 pm
Here’s how I see it - even if she doesn’t grow to appreciate it, you’ll know you didn’t drop the ball. I always recommend this kind of comment be made in terms of your personal feelings on the matter - not, if you don’t stop drinking, you’ll die, but more, I’m afraid I’m losing you to alcohol. Alcoholics tend to be the toughest to talk to because defenses seem to be a part of the package. Good luck -
Meryl
Comment by merylrunion — January 27, 2007 @ 5:07 pm
Meryl - In a continuation of my comment from 1/2007… We had the ultimate speak strong event this week. My older sister, mother, younger sister’s husband, and a professional interventionist arrived unannounced and had an intervention on my alcoholic younger sister. We loosely followed the guidance of the book “Love First: Intervention for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction” (by the Jays) to write letters to her to read during the intervention. The letters had three parts - tell what you love and miss about her, tell what alcohol has done to her and yourself, lay down the bottom line that you won’t support her addiction anymore. It worked and she went off to a detox and rehab center for a 6 week in-patient program. She will be mad at us for a long time, but hopefully she will remember the kind words we started with when we were speaking strong. An interesting thing the Dr. said that was there and prepped us, that the famous clinic where he used to work claimed that only 10% of the families considering intervention ever get organized enough to do it, but there is a 90% success rate to get the person help (either that day or later) after an intervention. That is the power of speaking strong.
I wanted to submit a success story, but can’t send e-mail from here. Thanks for the newsletter, it really helped me the last few months!
Comment by Susan — May 3, 2007 @ 5:50 pm