From 1932 to 1972, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) conducted a 40-year deathwatch over the lives of more than 400 black sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama. In this desperately poor region of the Black Belt, PHS, working in conjunction with state, county, and local health officials, deliberately deceived the men into believing they were receiving the prescribed treatment for syphilis. This was a lie. The men were left grossly under-treated or untreated so that scientists could observe and analyze the natural history of the disease. As a result, more than 100 of the subjects died from complications of syphilis. Rather than dismiss The Tuskegee Study as science gone mad, Dr. Jones offers a sophisticated examination of how well-intentioned professionals can commit great wrongs -- allowing race, class, and scientific curiosity to blind them to the fact that they were victimizing vulnerable members of our society.