I've been reading about the Nazi's and Unit 731 and while doing so I ran across the Tuskegee experiment, basically from my understanding the government was trying to figure out how to sterilize 'undesirables' without their knowledge or consent. In the 70's it became public that the US government was doing this and I was wondering how the public reacted? The US public still to this day largely ignores the unethical things our government has done, so mainly my curiosity lies in whether the people in the 70's cared or not.
Whilst I am not knowledgeable enough about the public perception of this event, I have some understanding of the experiment and medical ethics history so I can shed some light on part of the question.
So the Tuskegee experiment (at least the one I know of) was an observational study of black people who had syphilis. They would record the symptoms etc over time, seeing how the disease progressed. I do not believe the study's aim was for sterilisation, though those studies are out there. The initial research was not particularly unethical, though the methods were hardly the most rigorous. However, half way through the experiment the breakthrough cure for syphilis was developed. At this point the researchers should have stopped the experiment and given/offered the cure. But no studies had been going on as long as theirs, so the decision was made to continue the observation until all the cohort had died (with-holding the cure). This happened for years, with unnecessary deaths caused, until the public found out. The public outcries forced action, the experiment was stopped and investigated in its ethics and methods, both of which were found wanting. This case was one of the drivers for the need for ethical approval on medical research.
The Center for disease control US has a good timeline of the events, which I summarise above. http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm