10 famous whistleblowers in US history

Peter Buxton

As a US Public Health Service, or PHS, disease investigator, Peter Buxton publicly blew the whistle on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, an unethical medical study conducted by the PHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.

The purpose of the study, which was conducted on poor African-American sharecroppers from 1932 to 1972, was to see what happens when syphilis is left untreated. Despite the widespread availability of penicillin to treat syphilis by 1947, the study continued. By the end of the study, 128 participants had died of syphilis or its complications, 40 of participants' wives were infected, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.

Buxton first registered his concerns about the ethics of the experiment in 1966. The CDC, which by then controlled the study, ignored his concerns and reaffirmed the need to complete the study — in other words, to let all of the participants die and conduct an autopsy on them. In 1972, Buxton went to the press. A public outcry ensued that finally led to the review and termination of the study.