Harriet A. Washington
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Reception 5:30 p.m., Lecture 6:00 p.m.
New York Academy of Medicine-1216 Fifth Ave., New York

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was neither the first nor the last chapter in the deeply troubling history of medical experimentation on African Americans. In this lecture, Harriet Washingtons will discuss the major themes and a few case studies from her new book (due to be published in January by Random House). _Medical Apartheid_ explores the subject more comprehensively than any previous scholarly work. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition, Washington argues, that continues today. Among the legacies of this history is black Americans' deep distrust of medical researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—a lack of trust with major implications for both public health and social justice.

Copies of the book, _Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present_, will be available for sale and to be signed by the author.

HARRIET A. WASHINGTON has been a fellow in ethics at the Harvard Medical School, a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University. As a journalist and editor, she has worked for USA Today and several other publications, been a Knight Fellow at Stanford University and has written for such academic forums as the Harvard Public Health Review and The New England Journal of Medicine. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards for her work. Washington lives in New York City.

Save the Dates!

Thursday, February 15, 2007
Chris Feudtner, "Depicting Decisions: The History of Diabetes and the Daily Work of Care"

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Annual Friends of the Rare Book Room Lecture
Walton Schalick, "School Books, School Days: The Technology of Medical Books in Medieval Paris"

Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Iago Galdston Lecture
Susan Lederer, "Bombs, Blood, and Bio-Markers: Medical Preparedness in Cold-War America."

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Gerry Oppenheimer, "Shattered Dreams?" The Impact of AIDS on the New South Africa"

ALL LECTURES AT 6 PM, RECEPTIONS AT 5:30 PM

This event is free and open to the public. For more information about NYAM programs in the history of medicine, visit our website at http://www.nyam.org/initiatives/im-histe.shtml , write history@nyam.org , or call Christian Warren at 212.822.7314.

The Academy's Rare Book Room was featured in the New York Times. To read a press release, with a link to the article, visit http://www.nyam.org/news/2258.html .

Historical programs at NYAM are supported by the Friends of the Rare Book Room. Please join the Friends now. Write cwarren@nyam.org for details, or download a membership form at http://www.nyam.org/initiatives/docs/FRBR_Renewal.pdf .

THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE 1216 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10029