Aside from wasting the talents of several top-notch actors, the biggest problem with this movie is that it's basically a lie from top to bottom. Most of the facts presented are essentially true, but they very carefully leave out other parts to turn this into a Good vs. Evil morality play, with the Evil White Government oppressing poor black sharecroppers and purposefully killing them by withholding treatment. I'm surprised Oliver Stone wasn't doing this one.
It leaves out the fact that the only treatment for syphilis well into the 50s was arsenic, a year-long, painful treatment that hardly anyone ever finished. Its effectiveness, even when completed, was highly questionable. It also leaves out the fact that the acute, contagious syphilitics (178 of them) WERE treated, though most refused to finish the painful arsenic series. The remainder, latent noncontagious cases, were the ones followed in the study. Medically, these were almost never treated anywhere since it was too late to be effective and the majority of them would have no long-term effects anyway (no matter what you learned in Health class).
The Congressional hearings were largely just a platform for the political race wars of the time and never let real science get in the way of a good show.
I grew a bit suspicious over the whole thing because I knew one of the participants of the study, a retired Army sergeant who worked at Walter Reed. He never had a problem with the study and as a medic he certainly understood the pros and cons. As an untreated latent, it never affected his wife or five grown children, and he was in good health the last time I saw him at age 72.
For those with half a brain who are interested in the truth rather than Hollywood B.S., there is an excellent article at:
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA34A.htm I's have given this a 4 for the lousy direction, but I dropped it to a 2 because I don't like being lied to by Hollywood race-baiters.
It leaves out the fact that the only treatment for syphilis well into the 50s was arsenic, a year-long, painful treatment that hardly anyone ever finished. Its effectiveness, even when completed, was highly questionable. It also leaves out the fact that the acute, contagious syphilitics (178 of them) WERE treated, though most refused to finish the painful arsenic series. The remainder, latent noncontagious cases, were the ones followed in the study. Medically, these were almost never treated anywhere since it was too late to be effective and the majority of them would have no long-term effects anyway (no matter what you learned in Health class).
The Congressional hearings were largely just a platform for the political race wars of the time and never let real science get in the way of a good show.
I grew a bit suspicious over the whole thing because I knew one of the participants of the study, a retired Army sergeant who worked at Walter Reed. He never had a problem with the study and as a medic he certainly understood the pros and cons. As an untreated latent, it never affected his wife or five grown children, and he was in good health the last time I saw him at age 72.
For those with half a brain who are interested in the truth rather than Hollywood B.S., there is an excellent article at:
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA34A.htm I's have given this a 4 for the lousy direction, but I dropped it to a 2 because I don't like being lied to by Hollywood race-baiters.