Cobaias

Eunice Evers is a nurse who gets involved in treatment trials of Afro-Americans in the south for syphilis. She helps the doctors treat many hundreds of men but then the Government cuts the funding and replaces it with funding for a study that the disease works the same in blacks as much as whites. However the study removes the treatment for a set period and lets the men slowly fade away.

From the HBO stable of TV movies, I was attracted by the fact that it was based on a true story that I was not aware of, plus it had a few good actors in the lead roles. The story is potentially quite moving and I don't know why the tvm didn't manage to bring that across very well. It was told reasonably well but it never had me really touched or moved. That said the story was still quite good, even if it could easily have lost a bit of running time – the senate hearing was a good frame for telling the story. It was just a major problem for me that the film wasn't gripping and wasn't powerful, I mean, the Government sanctioned these men's deaths for the greater good – why isn't this film setting TV sets alight!?

The cast are pretty good in the main roles but not as strong in support. In support the actors mainly just do some mugging and play African-American workingmen stereotypes. Woodard is a good actress and gives a great performance in the lead. Fishburne and Morton lend support with small but important roles and the support cast have a few nice character pieces.

Overall this is an uninvolving film and I don't really understand why at all; the story is true and powerful and the cast are all reasonably good. However the film is flat for most of the telling – it's worth seeing once but it is more of a slog than it should be.

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.

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.

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

*spoilers*

It was hard for me to sympathize with the central character, Nurse Evers, portrayed by Woodard. I thought that she betrayed the men and was in denial. Subsequently, she was locked in because of the lying and deceit and tried to make up for it by dedicating her life to the men she helped deceived. That only resulted, however, in two more wasted lives, hers and the man that loved her.

I kept wondering, what is wrong with this woman, is she nuts or what?! As far as I am concerned with the study conflicted with their true "calling" as health care professionals. During the senate investigation Ms. Evers (Woodard) was asked "What in the world did you think you were doing??!! My sentiments, exactly.