Health & Medicine Theories

Forty-year (1932-1972) US Public Health Service study of 399 Black men with syphilis in Alabama. Researchers withheld treatment — even after penicillin became standard cure in 1947 — to observe the disease's progression. Exposed by whistleblower Peter Buxtun in 1972.

The theory that pharmaceutical companies suppress effective treatments and cures for major diseases because chronic illness is more profitable than one-time cures, and that regulatory agencies are complicit through revolving-door employment.

The debate over whether adding fluoride to public water supplies is a safe public health measure to prevent tooth decay, or a form of mass medication with potential health risks that the public cannot opt out of.