Controversial Clinical Trials That Used Black People as Guinea Pigs

Surgical Repair of Vesicovaginal Fistula

In his quest for an effective treatment for vesicovaginal fistula, a serious vaginal complication that causes great pain, a controversial American physician by the name of James Marion Sims resorted to using enslaved black women for his experiments.

It is alleged that Mr. Sims performed surgeries on his subjects without anesthesia. He argued that the operations were not painful enough to warrant any form of anesthesia. Sims further reasoned that “black people did not feel as much pain as white people”, and therefore didn‘t require anesthesia during surgery. Many women died at the hands of the man who some people now regard as “the father of modern gynecology”.

On Saturday last week, a group of female protesters staged a peaceful protest at Central Park, New York demanding the removal of Dr. Sims’s statue from the park, arguing that it is a symbol of oppression.