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    1. Tuskegee Experiment

    Sadistic Experiments
    Public Domain
    In an effort to determine, by way of autopsy, what syphilis does to the human body, in 1932, researchers from the U.S. Public Health Service and the Tuskegee Institute began an experiment on about 400 poor black men from Alabama infected with syphilis. The men weren't told they had the disease, and despite the arrival in 1947 of penicillin, they received no treatment for the disease either. Rather, they were given free meals, free medical check-ups, and free burial insurance. Having never been told they had syphilis, the men went about their lives, infecting sexual partners along the way, with many of the men dying of the disease. The experiment lasted four decades.

    Today's drug companies can look to the Tuskegee Experiment as a primary reason why there are so many controls in place today to protect clinical trial participants.

    Credit: Sony PicturesThis article is sponsored in part by The Experiment, available on Blu-Ray and DVD September 21st (What's this?)