Miss Evers' Boys

First of all, I must say that this was one of the best TV movies I've ever seen. Not only were there quality actors (Alfre Woodard, Laurence Fishburn, Joe Morton), but the people involved succeeded in making this an honest drama and not one where the schmaltz comes dripping out of your screen. As for the film itself I must say that all the cast and crew were great and I had no complaints about the film, but one. I really missed that sarcastic edge in the end. I mean, if I was a director I would have blacked out the screen in the end and would have inserted the conclusion of the experiment there. You know a black screen with something like: ‘Compared to whites, blacks do not react differently to syphilis.' taken from … and so on. I would have really liked that, because I (as a first year psychology student) have read about a lot of experiments even now, some of which were morally more acceptable than others, but never in my life have I read something as terrible as this. Do not get me wrong, I understood the intention at the beginning of the experiment, but I think it was unhuman to go along with it. Even if some men had died from getting pene - something (an anti biotic), it would have been better than the terrible death they faced through syphilis. But what about science you ask? Screw the data!

7 out of 10

Most viewers agree that the betrayal of Nurse Evers and Dr.Brodus was heinous. Regardless of whatever medical oath is taken, God's Commandments come first. And that goes for the military also. What makes Nurse Ever's and Dr.Brodus's actions more fiendish is the fact of allowing these men to live normal lives while participating in this study. Normal as being, continuing to have sexual relations with their unknowing wives, as well as other women in their community. Giving birth to children from those sexual relations in which those children entered the world infected over a 40 year period. They speak of numbers (412), but in fact , it really numbered into the thousands considering that several generations of men, woman, and children were infected through this study. In my eyes, that amounts to genocide which was sanctioned by the CDC.

"MEB" tells the story of the infamous "Tuskeegee Syphilis Study" by building the docudrama around a black nurse (Woodard) who hailed from the black community which was the focus of the study. The polished and well crafted film spends equal time with the lives of the Macon County black sharecroppers and the questions of medical ethics the study raised resulting in an entertaining as well as informative watch. A nice mix of docu and drama, fact and fiction.

I went to the "Spiked" website and read the article mentioned in the previous post. That article is a fancy bit of rationalization. The bottom line is you don't promise anyone hope in the face of possible death when that hope was nothing more than a lie to begin with. That is the heart and soul of why this movie is so important. It does expose a terrible lie perpetrated upon unsuspecting people. If they had been told the truth, it would have been morally different. In fact, the eventual monetary compensation the men and families received was too small for a lifetime of hopes and deception.

The article on "Spiked" only made me appreciate the movie and the excellent acting all that much more.

The acting was powerful, and it looked like a labor of love. I think everyone involved with this film must have felt the weight of purpose for getting out the truth of what had happened. It is one of the best acted, most well written movies ever and I encourage people to see it.

This very solid movie is a recreation of the Tukseegee experiments, in which a group of African American men were lied to about receiving treatment for syphilis, and were simply allowed to die from the disease as a part of a government "study" even though a completely effective treatment (simple penicillin) had been found early on.

There's a good performance here from Alfre Woodward as Eunice Evers, the compassionate nurse who signs on to help with the treatment program and then, after the funding for the program runs out, stays with the program once it becomes a study of how the men will fare without treatment. She gets caught up in the lie, insisting to the end that something worthwhile had come out of this experiment, but throughout the movie has definite moral qualms about this which are overcome by her desire to care for the men who are dying of the disease.

It's a very sad fact that this is a true story. It's treated as a flashback, as Miss Evers testifies before a U.S. Senate Committee hearing on the experiment. The study apparently ran for forty years (beginning in 1932) and most of the afflicted men died without receiving any treatment for the disease. The closing captions tell us that the survivors and the families of those who died received financial compensation of ridiculously small amounts, and that it was not until 1997 that the United States Government (through President Clinton) actually apologized for what had been done. This is a very sad movie almost the whole way through - certainly not one that will lift your spirits, but it's an important movie about something that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.