https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/15/peter-buxtun-tuskegee-whistleblower-dies [p] Skip to main contentSkip to navigation Close dialogue1/1Next imagePrevious imageToggle caption Skip to navigation Print subscriptions Sign in Search jobs Search US edition[ ] * US edition * UK edition * Australia edition * Europe edition * International edition The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian [ ] * News * Opinion * Sport * Culture * Lifestyle ShowMoreShow More * [ ]News + View all News + US news + US elections 2024 + Donald Trump trials + World news + Environment + Ukraine + Soccer + Business + Tech + Science + Newsletters + Wellness * [ ]Opinion + View all Opinion + The Guardian view + Columnists + Letters + Opinion videos + Cartoons * [ ]Sport + View all Sport + Euro 2024 + Soccer + NFL + Tennis + MLB + MLS + NBA + NHL + F1 + Golf * [ ]Culture + View all Culture + Film + Books + Music + Art & design + TV & radio + Stage + Classical + Games * [ ]Lifestyle + View all Lifestyle + Wellness + Fashion + Food + Recipes + Love & sex + Home & garden + Health & fitness + Family + Travel + Money * Search input [ ] google-search Search + Support us + Print subscriptions * [ ]US edition + UK edition + Australia edition + Europe edition + International edition * + Search jobs + Digital Archive + Guardian Licensing + About Us + The Guardian app + Video + Podcasts + Pictures + Inside the Guardian + Guardian Weekly + Crosswords + Wordiply + Corrections * + Search jobs + Digital Archive + Guardian Licensing + About Us * US * US elections 2024 * Donald Trump trials * World * Environment * Ukraine * Soccer * Business * Tech * Science * Newsletters * Wellness Man with beard sits on sofa and rests finger on face [ ] Peter Buxtun pictured in San Francisco in this undated photo. Photograph: Liz Hafalia/AP View image in fullscreen Peter Buxtun pictured in San Francisco in this undated photo. Photograph: Liz Hafalia/AP US news Peter Buxtun, whistleblower who exposed Tuskegee syphilis study, dies aged 86 Buxtun, who had Alzheimer's, revered for role in bringing to light one of worst medical research scandals in US history Associated Press Mon 15 Jul 2024 19.17 EDTLast modified on Mon 15 Jul 2024 19.38 EDT Share Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the US government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86. Buxtun died on 18 May of Alzheimer's disease in Rocklin, California, according to his attorney, Minna Fernan. Buxtun is revered as a hero to public health scholars and ethicists for his role in bringing to light the most notorious medical research scandal in US history. Documents that Buxtun provided to the Associated Press, and its subsequent investigation and reporting, led to a public outcry that ended the study in 1972. Forty years earlier, in 1932, federal scientists began studying 400 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were infected with syphilis. When antibiotics became available in the 1940s that could treat the disease, federal health officials ordered that the drugs be withheld. The study became an observation of how the disease ravaged the body over time. In the mid-1960s, Buxtun was a federal public health employee working in San Francisco when he overheard a co-worker talking about the study. The research was not exactly a secret - about a dozen medical journal articles about it had been published in the previous 20 years. But hardly anyone had raised any concerns about how the experiment was being conducted. "This study was completely accepted by the American medical community," said Ted Pestorius of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking at a 2022 program marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the study. Buxtun had a different reaction. After learning more about the study, he raised ethical concerns in a 1966 letter to officials at the CDC. In 1967, he was summoned to a meeting in Atlanta, where he was chewed out by agency officials for what they deemed to be impertinence. Repeatedly, agency leaders rejected his complaints and his call for the men in Tuskegee to be treated. He left the US Public Health Service and attended law school, but the study ate at him. In 1972, he provided documents about the research to Edith Lederer, an AP reporter he had met in San Francisco. Lederer passed the documents to the AP investigative reporter Jean Heller, telling her colleague: "I think there might be something here." Heller's story was published on 25 July 1972, leading to congressional hearings, a class-action lawsuit that resulted in a $10m settlement and the study's termination about four months later. In 1997, President Bill Clinton formally apologized for the study, calling it "shameful". The leader of a group dedicated to the memory of the study participants said on Monday they were grateful to Buxtun for exposing the experiment. "We are thankful for his honesty and his courage," said Lille Tyson Head, whose father was in the study. Buxtun was born in Prague in 1937. His father was Jewish, and his family immigrated to the US in 1939 from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, eventually settling in Irish Bend, Oregon, on the Columbia River. In his complaints to federal health officials, he drew comparisons between the Tuskegee study and medical experiments Nazi doctors had conducted on Jews and other prisoners. Federal scientists did not believe they were guilty of the same kind of moral and ethical sins, but after the Tuskegee study was exposed, the government put in place new rules about how it conducts medical research. Today, the study is often blamed for the unwillingness of some African Americans to participate in medical research. "Peter's life experiences led him to immediately identify the study as morally indefensible and to seek justice in the form of treatment for the men. Ultimately, he could not relent," said the CDC's Pestorius. Buxtun attended the University of Oregon, served in the US army as a combat medic and psychiatric social worker and joined the federal health service in 1965. Buxtun went on to write, give presentations and win awards for his involvement in the Tuskegee study. A global traveler, he collected and sold antiques, especially military weapons and swords and gambling equipment from California's gold rush era. He also spent more than 20 years trying to recover his family's properties confiscated by the Nazis and was partly successful. "Peter was wise, witty, classy and unceasingly generous," said David M Golden, a close friend of Buxtun's for over 25 years. "He was a staunch advocate for personal freedoms and spoke often against prohibition, whether it be drugs, prostitution or firearms." Another longtime friend Angie Bailie said she attended many of Buxtun's presentations about Tuskegee. "Peter never ended a single talk without fighting back tears," she said Buxtun himself could be self-effacing about his actions, saying he did not anticipate the vitriolic reaction of some health officials when he started questioning the study's ethics. At a Johns Hopkins University forum in 2018, Buxtun was asked where he got the moral strength to blow the whistle. "It wasn't strength," he said. "It was stupidity." 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