Transcript
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Introduces the speaker’s family connection to the Tuskegee study and describes how men in the community were deceived and denied treatment. It also explains the human cost of the study and the early sense of betrayal and mistrust it created.
Speaker A
A lot of people are familiar with the shorthand.There were some men in Alabama, they had syphilis.They were untreated for a number of years, and then they were treated and sort of act like this is ancient history.And I don't feel like that's the case.
Speaker B
My father, Freddie Lee Tyson, was One of the 623 African American men lured into a study that promised them medical treatment for their health issue, so called bad blood.
Speaker C
My dad was a loving person, uneducated, but a worker.Loved his, loved his family and took care of us and made sure that we had the best.
Speaker D
They were husbands, they were fathers, they were grandfathers, great grandfathers, brothers, sons.They were men and of pride.But this happened to them.And unbeknownst to them, it took place at a time when they didn't have knowledge, didn't have enough knowledge to know what was going on.
Speaker E
My father, Freddie Lee Tyson, was part of the study, the United States Public Health Syphilis Study, down in Tuskegee, Alabama, Macon county area.And he was one of the men of the 623 men that were.They didn't know what they were getting into.They were told false lies and stories about treatment which they never got.
Speaker D
His name was Papa.We called him Papa.Papa Willie Fitzpatrick.Papa Willie was, in my understanding, was a sharecropper, a giant of a man in the community.He had skills in cutting hair and he was a very kind hearted man.He didn't mind you not having any money or anything like that.
Speaker F
It was my grandfather and his name was Willie Fitzpatrick.He was a God fearing man.He hard worker.He often was seen in the yard cutting hair.So that meant that he was a barber.He gave the elderly people in the community haircut.And he would always, we live not far walking.Just as a matter of fact, he could stand still his porch and look down into the schoolyard of Cotton Valley Elementary School, where I went.
Speaker G
My uncle, who was Freddie Lee Tyson, I had a great uncle, which was Rufus Neal and his son Reuben Neal.
Three of my family members were a part of that study.
Speaker H
They lied to the men at the very beginning.And that's a basic fundamental violation of their autonomy and dignity as persons.From there, the whole thing just gets worse.
Speaker G
The Tuskegee community is a very small community.
I think during the time of the study, there was relatively about 3,500 people in Tuskegee in terms of its populations.
Speaker I
When I think, for example, of the men and their wives who were denied health care and what led to them being vulnerable to the exploits of the US Public Health Service.When it comes to the syphilis study, they were just seeking to have healthier lives because health care was such a privilege and they had such limited access to it.When they saw this as an opportunity to actually protect their health, they were misled and misused because of that.
Speaker H
I think the first thing that jumps out in almost all of these research abuse cases is that there are great differences between the researchers and the people who are being studied.
The researchers are usually white, they're well educated, they have higher social status, and the people who are being studied are often poor, uneducated, belong to a minority.
Speaker G
It was very interesting to me because during the time of the study, I interacted with my uncle and he was so loving and jovial and just a delight to be around to the point I did not know he was being treated like a guinea pig.And I guess that's what makes it so heartbreaking to know that a person who was as loving as my uncle could be treated like that.
Speaker J
The doctors who put the syphilis study at Tuskegee together had a strong belief that people were different and different in their response to diseases like syphilis based on their race.Those ideas had been taught in the 19th century.
They certainly carried over into the 20th.The differences among various so called racial groups made them differentially susceptible disease, according to that way of thinking.It's important for us to remember that racial medicine of the 19th century did not stop at the turn of the 20th century.
Speaker E
I had always been taught in my nursing career to care for people, no matter what race, no matter what religion, no matter what they believed in.When you walked into the patient's room, you saw that patient as a person and not as a color or a religion or anything else other than to just to take care of that patient and do the best job that you could.
And that's always been my motto, to do the best job I could in doing nursing care for anyone.
Speaker K
I think it has had a negative effect on the black population and also some of the white population too.Not totally trusting that the government is trying to help them in a positive way at all times.
Speaker H
Why?
Speaker B
Why would anyone want to treat, first of all another human being in that way?
Not to mention that we're talking about professionals, doctors who were sworn to do no evil, and this was an evil act to not treat the men, not tell the men what the story was about, and to lure the men in such a study with deception and, and lies.The tragedy of the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment is deeply ingrained in the hearts and the minds of particularly communities of color.It was such an egregious violation of human rights.And so, even 50 years later, there are frequent mentions of the Tuskegee study, particularly in terms of how some communities react to public health guidance.
Reflects on the emotional impact of learning about the study and the deliberate withholding of care. The section also explains how researchers knew the damage was happening and still continued the study.
Speaker G
Healing needs to be a continuous one.
Right now in the city of Tuskegee, there is no 24 hour health care facility.We do not have a hospital.And I think about the fact that those men were denied health care.They were allowed to cohabitate in the communities, spreading syphilis within the community, and people who were entrusted to serve them and to protect them allowed them to suffer.
Speaker H
Here's the important thing.
They think that the end of science justifies the means of treating the people in the research as objects.
Speaker C
Being that he was poor, had been
Speaker E
poor, uneducated, it was confusion.It was, how could this happen?It was disbelief.
It was a whole ball of emotions that came to my mind that I didn't know how to deal with.
Speaker C
My dad was healthy, and I never heard or knew anything about the syphilis project until I was in my 30s.And so my dad did not want to talk about it, did not tell us about it.My mom didn't tell us anything about it, about the syphilis until after I found out about it.
Speaker E
My father had been examined and they wanted all of the children to be examined, to have blood tests.
And that's what we did to see if we were a carrier or if we had syphilis.
Speaker C
But after I read the article about this, the syphilis study, something clicked in my head.And I called my brother and I said, I believe dad was a part of this.He would often mention the nurses and the school.And so the last thing I think they thought was that they would be mistreated.
I just want everyone to know my dad was a loving, compassionate, hard working man.
Speaker F
I felt really, really bad.I said, my grandfather, good man.And they did this to him.And he died not knowing what was happening to him.
Speaker L
I do briefly recall my father, my grandfather, talking about it.I must have been about 10 years old in my initial reaction.I was really confused.I really didn't understand other than this whole notion of a experiment with African American men and what was happening with it.And I was like, why would they do that to these people?
Speaker M
And there was deliberate withholding.I mean, there was instances where they did seek treatment at other places, and it was prohibited during World War II.Their desire to enlist and going to the enlistment boards and giving the lists of these men and having them withhold from service so they wouldn't be treated.
Speaker N
I was an activist medical student living in California and working in the East Palo Alto community to improve the health of medically underserved populations, including HIV prevention with people who use drugs.And it was then when I took a course that covered bioethics and we discussed the Tuskegee study, I mean, there's
Speaker M
some really aggressive actions on behalf of the Public Health Service to ensure that these men did not get well.And if you go back and read the papers, they already knew what the impact was.I mean, you saw already increased cardiac events and you saw increased death.I mean, it was very evident early on in the study that denying these men treatment or having not had them treated, I mean, initially they couldn't deny treatment.There wasn't treatment.
But I think it was very evident early on that having syphilis was extraordinarily detrimental to these men's health.And to proactively state, we are not going to treat these men, and furthermore, we're going to work aggressively to ensure that they don't get treatment so that we can sustain this study, which was a poor study.I mean, it was poorly written.It didn't have informed consent, didn't really have a desired outcome.It was just kind of like this idea, hey, let's track these guys and see what happens.Well, we knew it was going to happen.
Speaker N
It was painful for me and for anyone who hears about the study because the participants put their lives in the hands of institutions and healthcare professionals, and they violated that trust.
Describes the CDC’s role in public health work, the discovery of the study’s victims, and efforts to close the study and support affected families. It also covers reactions from participants and the creation of the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program.
Speaker A
The public health advisors at CDC are a group that was started by Bill Watson, and they needed people to go out in the field and work in conjunction with the state and local health departments on helping to interrupt the spread and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, or as they were known then, venereal diseases.And so they hired this group of guys, of course, at that time, in the late 1940s, early 1950s, who went out and they would try and locate patients who had STDs and get them treated to interrupt the chains of transmission in the neighborhoods.
Speaker K
I had been working for CDC since 1964, and I was aware of the Tuskegee study and how it started and what they were doing and to be part of trying to correct the way it was handled and to make sure that the individuals were taken care of properly.I jumped at the chance to try to help cdc.
Speaker B
My father received a telephone call from an official at the CDC or telling him that he was in the study.
That's when we really learned about.Dad was really one of the men who had been victimized.
Speaker C
There were two white men from CDC that periodically visited our home and took my dad to Chicago for a meeting or for tests or what have you.
Speaker D
They are.They may be in a little, like a denial.
Wow, this really happened to our grandfather, our great grandfather.Did they really do this to him?
Speaker K
I was asked in the 1970s by the center, CDC center, to help with the closing of the Tuskegee study and to make sure that all of the participants and family, other individuals related to family, were all tested and medically treated, if necessary.At the time, I was working in Philadelphia regional office, and we had to assemble a work group of about six or seven people to go to Tuskegee on site and stay for, I believe it was two to three weeks and make the contacts all over Tuskegee and surrounding areas of the people that may have been involved in the Tuskegee study was expecting.
Speaker O
In fact, I was prepared.We were all prepared to expect the worst.Angry relatives, angry participants.But what I found was a group of very, very responsible citizens, kind of proud of what they'd done.Several of them told me they had an agreement with the government, and they honored their agreement, and the government honored theirs as well.But in the discussion, it became clear they weren't.
They didn't exactly say they felt taken advantage of.They just weren't as well informed as they should have been.But there was some pride in the service.They felt they had provided a service, and they were all upstanding, respectable participants, citizens.
Speaker K
It was interesting.A number of the folks that were in the study, they were not angry.They said they understood some of what had happened, and they had signed the contract and they were going to fulfill the contract.And then there were others that were angry about the way it was handled and that they had not received penicillin treatment when it was available.And I think they understood more about the disease than some of the others that did not.
Speaker P
The Division of STD Prevention has been assigned to manage the Tuskegee Health Benefit Plan that was established to provide medical and health benefits to study participants with inclusion of their spouses and their children.
In addition to that, the Division of STD Prevention collaborates is part of a partnership that I think is very significant in terms of, again, maintaining and creating really, a lasting legacy.
Speaker O
Tuskegee Health Benefit Program was created and as a result of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of the men who were in the study and their family members against the United States government for having participated in the study.It was one of the settlement requirements for that lawsuit.The creation of a program that would pay for medical expenses of the then living men as well as wives or widows that were affected by their participation.And then children who were born congenitally with syphilis were also included in that program.
Currently, there are nine clients in the Tuskegee Health Benefit Program.I began managing it in 2005, and at that time there were over 20 clients.At that time there were three widows that were part of the program and children, again offspring of men who participated in this study.I didn't have the pleasure of managing program while any of the living men were any of the participants.The men that participated were living.
However, I did manage under with three widows and 17 children.
Speaker K
Well, a number of the folks that were involved, family members, etc.Wanted to know whether or not there were going to be any charges for the medical examinations or treatment if necessary.And I told them no, that it would all be handled by CDC and that it would be no charge to them.
Speaker M
I was deployed to Montgomery, Alabama in July of 91 for Syphilis Blitz.
And this is one of these things.We're working seven days a week.You're there for 30 days.You're going to work every day.And long work days.
And there used to be a Mexican restaurant that was kind of where we'd gather.We'd have dinner, maybe margarita for going, you know, back to the hotel.And I remember I was there one night and there was a senior public health advisor.So at the time, you know, I'm sure he's well in his 60s, but he'd been doing this for a long time.And we got talking about it, and I remember saying, you know, I can't believe this happened.I can't believe men were denied treatment.And he was adamant.He said, you know, no, everybody got treatment.You couldn't get a sniffle without getting penicillin.People got treatment.
Nobody was withheld.And he was just the animacy with which he opposed it.How we would question his public health credentials that he had denied treatment.And I thought that was my first awareness.But then working in the field and hearing more about it, and so I eventually read Bad Blood, so I got the book by Jim Jones.I wanted to learn more about it.
Speaker N
Tuskegee was originally designed to provide useful information that could improve the care for African Americans with syphilis in the southern U.S. a disproportionately affected group at the time.But when effective treatment became available, it was not provided to participants.The investigators continued to publish articles in the scientific literature.So many researchers and clinicians were reading those articles and not reflecting on the lives of the people who were participating in the study.
A study that was initially designed to do good was now doing the opposite.
Explores the long-term damage Tuskegee caused to trust in public health, especially in communities of color. The speaker emphasizes the need to learn from history, build community relationships, and keep ethics central to public health practice.
Speaker M
There's no way that you can, you know, put a rose colored lens on this.
Speaker Q
Fifty years after the end of the study, I still see negative impacts that are taking place in the African American and other minority communities.There's the issue of mistrust and also distrust and just the issue of being able to know that there's a vested interest in the well being of all persons within our nation.
Speaker R
You should study it, you should understand it, but you also want to pull back the onion skins and understand why things happened and understand how relatively good ideas of medical care can very easily be perverted to issues of discrimination and structural systems that over time are very, very difficult to stop.With Tuskegee, there were many opportunities to change their minds and go on a different pathway.
And the persistence and the mindset of the people involved did not evolve with the times, did not evolve with the scientific knowledge.I think that that's a historical lesson that every one of us in public health should never forget.
Speaker I
I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, as some people have said.And so when you come from a disadvantaged community and you see and experience for yourself what it's like not to be treated in a respectful and ethical manner around something so important as your health, you want to see that be changed.And I saw how family members were treated in the healthcare system growing up.
And I want that not to be the experience of others going forward until
Speaker B
we reckon with history and these harms that have been not only committed, as demonstrated by the syphilis study that happened at Tuskegee, but the ongoing kind of harms that people are experiencing on their day to day basis of where they live in their communities and how they've been interacting with health systems, whether public health or healthcare overall, whether it's government or private, we're not going to get to the point, we haven't gotten to the point of healing.
Speaker K
I think it gets back to an individual freedom of wanting to participate or not.
Speaker B
Well, first of all, I think it's important that people be aware that there are any number of regulations and processes in place as a result of not only the Tuskegee syphilis study, but other studies that really violated communities and population groups.And in addition to that, CDC feels strongly that we need to continue to build our relationships with community based organizations, with faith based organizations, with national minority serving organizations, and always be available to receive feedback and to listen and to understand what's going on at the local level so that our public health strategies can be both culturally responsive as well as effective.
We feel that the way to repair and rebuild this relationship with particularly communities of color, is to be present, to listen and respond.
Speaker P
But it's also important to really, in spite of the terrible events that we focus on, where are the lessons learned and how we make sure, I think in many ways, in the best way, to maintain the legacy and the sacrifices of study participants and their families to make sure that these lessons continue, go on and continue to inform and to educate a new generation of clinicians, public health practitioners, investigators, so the same mistakes don't happen again.
Speaker C
You know, I'm not happy that this happened, but I am pleased that the Voices of Our Father's Legacy foundation have a mission to make sure that this does not happen again, that we are informed, that it is known what went on, how we should be educated.
Speaker B
And
Speaker C
even though I trust with the medical and government programs that they have for African Americans, we still see mistreatment.
Speaker P
And as public health practitioners, investigators, clinicians, caring for patients, we constantly have to examine our conscience.And when we find something that is inappropriate, you know, we need to have the courage to denounce it.
Speaker F
Now with doctors and things now, when you go to the doctor, you go from this doctor to that doctor, this doctor did that.Nobody explains anything.And then some doctors don't want you really asking them questions.
But I've learned I'm going to ask questions.We're going to.Just tell me exactly what you're talking about.How is that going to affect me?Because I don't want the same thing to happen to me or my family that happened to my grandfather.
Speaker M
I remember very vividly meeting with Fred Gray.And he goes, the men wanted two things.We wanted assurance that this would never, ever happen again.And that's why we fund the Bioethics Institute to ensure that we give resources that these things can be studied and prevented.And he said, the second thing was the men didn't want to be forgotten.
And that's the museum.So if you look at Fred's book, it's dedicated to the, you know, 600 men.So there's 400 participants and then 200 controls.And the numbers varied a little bit, but their names are out there, their names are in the museum.
Speaker B
I cannot do anything about what has happened to me and all of those men.
But it's up to you all to make sure that nothing like this happens again.And with that in mind, those words are as clear today as, as they were in 1972, of my father saying, it's up to you all to make sure this doesn't happen again.
Speaker D
And I think that when people read, look, find out, get a little bit more education on what's going on or what went on during that time, I think that they will be, they'll have more understanding of what happened during that time.
Speaker M
And I think that's important.They shouldn't be forgotten.
They were abused, they were taken advantage of, it was wrong and atonement is required.And so I think part of that is to ensure that their memory is sustained and that we learn from what we did and we not repeat it in the future, which is why we do remembrances.This is why we come together to say, hey, we did something that was pretty horrible.Let's make sure we don't do it again.
Speaker N
So many people who work in public health or in scientific and medical research want to make a positive difference in the world.
And occasionally they can lose sight of why they chose to do what they were doing, or the situation around them can try to push them into actions that are not ethical.Keeping an eye on that, making sure that the institutions you're working for have the right policies and the right practices, and making sure that on a day to day basis, the work that you're doing is oriented towards equity at all times is the way to prevent some of the mistakes that have happened in the past.
Focuses on how trust is built through action, transparency, and community partnership. It also highlights the importance of ethical courage, the role of whistleblowers like Peter Buxton, and the need to keep Tuskegee from becoming just a historical footnote.
Speaker N
Trust comes with proof of action.If we continue to engage communities, answer the most important questions for the public's health and health equity, and we do it with integrity and communicate the results effectively, then over time trust in CDC will grow.However, when mistakes occur, we also have to be open about them and rapidly resolve them.If we do that in collaboration with the communities that we serve, then we are standing by our highest principles.
Speaker I
There are people who should have been providing this quality of health care, basic health care, who probably had good intentions.
And that's the other thing, helping people understand that your good intentions don't justify any means necessary.And you see that happen because people keep saying, well, we're doing it for their own benefit, we're doing it for their own good.And I'm like, okay, you know, it's time for us to stop doing things for the community because sometimes that means unethical things happen and start doing Things
Speaker F
with people, I would like the doctor to explain to patients what it is, give them a chance to write it down.Fairly worried for them because some of them may not know how to spell the word.
Just help them to understand what they're going to do to them.
Speaker H
Trust is the passion or the comportment of people towards a leader or towards other people.Trustworthiness are the values and virtues of the person being trusted.And one of the hallmarks of trustworthiness is reliability and consistency.
Speaker I
When people have been misused and abused by the health care system, by well meaning people perhaps, but still nevertheless condescending or unapproachable or unwilling to answer questions and demystify processes, they show up in our healthcare system in dire straits.
Speaker C
Educate yourself as much as you can, be as knowledgeable as you can, and know that you cannot wholeheartedly just throw all your trust without some knowledge.
Speaker J
When I teach about Tuskegee, students are still shocked.Students still say in some cases they've only barely heard of it, never really understood what it was about.I think as long as we take the time to examine the details of the study, people will continue to be shocked and we should probably applaud that.I think that if we become unfeeling towards those events that we've really lost something.
They should be shocking to us.They should be, they should be ideas that we reel when we consider them.
Speaker G
And in a society where we have so much systemic inequities, it's important to do some introspective work and say, does everyone have this same opportunity?
Speaker D
If you see something, say something, be honest about anything and everything you do.Just remember the Golden Rule.
Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.And if you keep doing the wrong thing, we must know that urgency is essential.
Speaker B
I mean, folks who are experiencing injustice urgently need change to happen.And we as institutions that they're looking toward to help create, support that change.Shift power, shift resources, create different investments.
We need to have an sense of urgency about it.
Speaker S
We have established something at the agency called core and this is agency wide effort to embed health equity in everything we do.So in the science plane, that means that we look carefully at every science project now and try to see are we asking the right questions, are we using the right methods?Are we trying to move beyond just markers of disparities and get to underlying drivers that will really help make change and eventually contribute to the elimination of health inequities, not just describing them, but actually moving towards elimination.So this is now part of all of our processes, from the point of designing a project all the way through to disseminating it.
Speaker L
And our objective here is for people to be able to come to work and feel comfortable with who they are and not feel like they have to be someone else or feel they're going to be judged because of choices they make.I think these personal choices has nothing to do with how we perform our jobs.And we need to make it really comfortable for everyone in our organization.And I think through that comfort, we will also begin to be a stronger organization because we allow people to bring everything they have to offer to the workplace.And I think that's important.
Speaker I
Let me just say something that Bill Jenkins taught me, and I never forgot this.And I put it in almost any manuscript I write or any talk I give that health care, including public health, and has to be not only accessible, but acceptable.And where we break down is we think we're fixing it because we're making it accessible with the mobile van, with the clinic in a neighborhood, but it's not acceptable.And the only way you get to acceptable is working with the communities you're seeking to serve.And they get to define what is acceptable, not us.
Speaker M
And so I always say that Peter Buxton is probably the bravest public health advisor that CDC has ever had.Peter wrote about the Tuskegee study.He read the papers, and he wrote that this is immoral and this should be discontinued.These men should be notified, and they should be treated.And he turned it in.
And it's the same thing in 66.They would read it at your local jurisdiction, Then they would send it into Atlanta, and then you would get it back, and somebody would have written all over it in a red pen.He wrote another letter.I think this letter went to.I'd have to go back and double check.
David Setzer, at the time, was a agency director and again said that it was a moral and these men should be brought to treat, which is what the STD program is all about.You know, my employment manual, his employment manual.I think the, you know, the folks who get in STD today, I mean, the purpose of the STD program is to find individuals with syphilis and bring them to treatment and then provide prophylaxis to their, you know, partners to stop the spread of the disease.But he wrote to Dr. Sencer, and then Dr. Sencer convened a blue ribbon panel in 1971, and the panel came back with a vote of 11 to 1 that this was science and should be continued.And Peter disagreed.
He didn't concur with their determination.And he eventually he went to the press.And I remember, and I think this is important.When I talked to Peter, I said, did CDC fire you?He goes, no, no, no.They treated me horribly.I think you might have used the word abominably again.Want to check?But they treated me horribly.But they left me.They let me keep my job and I left my own free will and volition.And I said, did CDC ever apologize?
Speaker O
He said, no.
Speaker M
I said, you know, are you owed an apology?And he said, I seek not to burnish my reputation.
I think Peter's got an extraordinary story and he's our outstanding pha.
Speaker A
This is not something that's a historical event.It's something that's ongoing and that we need to keep learning from and keep acting on.
Concludes with lessons for future generations about remembering history without repeating it. The speaker discusses modern safeguards like IRBs, health equity efforts, workforce inclusion, and the ongoing responsibility to protect vulnerable communities.
Speaker L
I would tell my grandchildren that you need to be very conscious of history.
Don't linger in it too long, but understand it and know it.Because if you do not know it, things can repeat itself.And you need to understand how that history has shaped where we are as a country and how that history can impact you and how the fact that your ancestors may have been done a certain way, making sure that doesn't happen again to anyone.It's really about being human and really being about being understanding.You have to trust, but also verify.
And, and I believe that some of the things that happen today, as I think about even Covid in my community, the conversation was about the Tuskegee study and why people should not trust the government when we talk about immunizations.And so those things are really, really important to have the context around and being able to make sure that we don't relive the past, but just make it better as we go forward because we understand the limitations and the implications if we're not careful and paying attention.
Speaker I
The lessons learned from the syphilis study is this is what happens to people when they are limited and don't have choices and don't have equitable access.They end up being very vulnerable and subject to all kinds of misuse.
Speaker H
But I think that if we ultimately want to prevent a lot of these research abuses, we have to live in a society where people truly look at each other as brothers and sisters.
And you wouldn't do some of the things that has been done in research if you were doing it to your brother, sister, or your mother.
Speaker P
It's a great responsibility of us as researchers to make sure that the well being of research participants is protected.
Speaker G
It's not where you're from it's where you're going, it's not what you've done, it's what you're doing.And so although we can reflect and learn from the past, what is critical is that what are we doing now to make things better?
Speaker J
We have a whole regime of regulations that are the direct result of the discovery of what was going on in Macon County, Alabama.
Sometimes we make too much of those rules.Sometimes we try to consider those rules as being the stand in for paying attention to how we treat vulnerable subjects.To me, that's one of the things that Tuskegee should always remind us of, that it's not about rules, it's about human beings and how we treat them.
Speaker D
History will repeat itself if you don't do the right thing.So if you do the right thing, then let history repeat itself, but repeat itself.
Doing correct.
Speaker M
Now as a result, I believe of this study, we have institutional review boards.And so any scientist who wants to put forth any idea that involves human subjects at any institution, it's not just cdc, it's across the United States, all of our universities and federal partners, you have to put forth your proposal to the institutional review board.Then they have to review it and who will be the participants and what is their risk and what is their knowledge and you know, in some cases, will they be compensated and how.And so there's an extraordinarily rigorous process.
Speaker S
We have thankfully come a long way in 50 years.We now have national, federal, global standards for any research activity that CDC adheres to very strictly.So every activity at CDC is reviewed to determine whether there's any human participant engagement, potential risk or ethical concern that we need to be aware of.Whenever we find anything that might pose a risk to human participants, then that activity will be reviewed by what we call the IRB or the Institutional review board to make sure that there's adequate protections for people, that there's informed consent for any participant, and to make sure that any study meets all of the regulatory, established standards that are required now for federal studies.
Speaker B
This study is also spotlighting the racism and health disparities that continue to plague the institution of health care for the poor and the vulnerable.
Speaker L
Accessibility, just making sure that persons with disabilities do not feel that they have any limitations when it comes to the work that we do on a daily basis because we have the systems in place to ensure that they can be at their best, that they can matriculate through this organization in a powerful way.And obviously I've already talked about the whole notion of belonging, being able to show up who you are and being at your best.And at the end of the day, if we can ensure that employees are at their best, that translates to CDC being at its best.And that means that the American public is getting what they need from our organization.So that's really what's important to me.
And, and over the next five years, we're going to work together to make that happen.
Speaker I
So I think we have to figure out how to create an environment, how to be the kind of healthcare providers and be the kind of institutions that are not perceived as hostile and threatening.
Speaker L
I see a CDC staff that is representative of the American public.I see a CDC staff that is well prepared with state of the art equipment.Our ability to utilize data, our ability to utilize AI, machine learning and all the things that it represents as we go forward in order to make sure that we can be prepared and ready for whatever comes our way, the future.
And that really is going to be based on the foundational things that we're working on right now, which is to ensure that we have a diverse workforce.They're included.We are empowering them to do the work that they need to do.That the equity is there that helps us be able to make sure we're doing, doing our job to the best of our ability.
Speaker N
Externally, our nation, like all societies, has an uneven distribution of wealth and opportunity.
Health disparities will naturally emerge in an unequal society unless we consciously try to prevent them from occurring.We have to deliberately work as public health officials to fight against injustice and inequity or they will continue.
Speaker B
Our ability to operate with a sense of urgency and now and collectively is absolutely critical to drive change in monumental ways.I'm not a believer in kind of here the context of we're in a marathon and yes, of course we're in a marathon.I believe in the arc of justice and the context of that.
However, we have to be able to sprint when we have these opportunities and windows and doors open to create change in very meaningful ways and in urgent ways.
Speaker S
CDC has gone above and beyond the requirements.We actually established a public health ethics unit.That unit helps staff and partners throughout the agency to evaluate carefully any activity where we might be concerned about any ethical issue or any potential violation of scientific integrity.And we do consults very quickly, very rapidly on a whole range of things.
Speaker L
We need to take the time necessary to get this right.I believe this is an important time in history.I believe the stars are aligned in such a way that we really can make a difference.And I'm not sure of any other organization Some may say I'm biased in this I'm not sure of another organization that has more to lose than the CDC for the American people if we can't get this right because we need to represent the public that we serve in every way and we also need to understand what it means in underserved communities when we put out policies recommendations et cetera how do we work with our states local territorial tribal organizations to think about the equity that's required in order to really provide health security and protection when you think about the vision for the future that whole equity piece is really really important and we need to make sure we're practicing that internally that's the only way that we can be at our best as an organization is to give our people the tools they need to be successful in what they do in this organization.
So I take this very very seriously and we are going to do the things necessary to get this right it.
Speaker M
Sa.