Paron Hall

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Paran Hall

Parran Hall is the main building for the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health. This hall is named after Thomas Parran Jr, the Founding Dean of the school and the former U.S. Surgeon General, who played an active role in drafting the Social Security Act and founding the World Health Organization and advocated for universal healthcare. However, he was also the U.S. Surgeon General who directed two of the worst cases of bioethically unjustifiable experiments in U.S. history; The Tuskegee Study and the Guatemala Syphilis Experiment. [1]

Background

Thomas Parran Jr. who was born on September 28 1892 was an American doctor and an officer of the Public Health Service. He was born and raised near St. Leonard, Maryland, on his family's tobacco farm. He was mentored at home by a family member and went to St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, on a grant (1911, A.B.; 1915, A.M.). Finances impacted his choice to go to Georgetown University School of Medicine (1915, M.D.) and to continue with an internship at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. He has a lifelong interest in research during medical school. The American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association named its lifetime accomplishment award after Parran in acknowledgment of his work to bring issues to raise awareness regarding sexually transmitted diseases. [2]

Controversy

Parran, who served as the first dean of Pitt’s School of Public Health from 1948 to 1958, was involved in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study while serving as U.S. Surgeon General from 1936 to 1948. He was also involved in a government-sponsored study that infected prisoners and mental institution patients with venereal disease in Guatemala. The Tuskegee, Alabama, study retained data and treatment from 399 black males with syphilis so analysts could notice the advancement of the infection. Throughout the 40-year study, 28 men died from syphilis, 40 spouses were infected, and 19 children were brought into the world with an intrinsic type of the illness. As far back as the mid-1800s, populations that were devalued in American society such as racial minorities, people with disabilities and mental illness, orphans, prisoners, the elderly, became subject without consent for science experiments. [3] Before the discovery of penicillin as a treatment, syphilis was deadly. However many black men filled in as guineas pigs in a 40-year experiment for which Parran filled in as the clear inspiration. In that period, researchers neglected to give them new treatment and didn't educate them that the objective of the examination was to index the damages of untreated syphilis on human subjects. [4]

References

  1. Perillo, Mallory. Naming Controversy Surrounding Parran Hall. Panoramas. 28 May 2018. Retrieved February 2 2021.
  2. Thomas Parran Jr.. Wikipedia. Retrieved February 2 2021.
  3. University of Pittsburgh Calls Attention to a Dishonorable History in Experimentation. Western Pennsylvania Disability History & Action Consortium. 15 Aug 2018. Retrieved February 2 2021.
  4. Benzing, Jeffrey. Pitt to remove Dr. Thomas Parran’s name from university building. Here’s why. Public Source. 27 March 2018. Retrieved February 2 2021