Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I came across an article in the New York Times on Sunday that called my attention to the passing of an amazing man, a man who has a connection to the U.S. Senate.

I rise to pay my respects to a man of uncommon integrity. Dr. Irwin Schatz passed away on April 1 at the age of 83. Beloved and respected in the medical community, Dr. Schatz spent his career helping people. He was a major contributor to the Honolulu Heart Program, a landmark study with half a century of followup on Japanese American men in Hawaii.

Dr. Schatz was the rare critic of the notorious Tuskegee, AL, syphilis medical experiments.

From 1952 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted the Tuskegee clinical study on poor African-American sharecroppers. They wanted to know about untreated syphilis on African Americans. There were 600 men enrolled in the study. Almost two-thirds had syphilis, while the rest were used as control subjects. Between 1932 and 1947, the date when penicillin was determined to be the cure for the disease, at least seven men died, and their wives, children, and untold number of others had been infected.

Men participating in the study were told they were being treated for bad blood. Bad blood wasn't running in the veins of these men, it was running in the veins of those who decided this study was worth more than their humanity.

Dr. Irwin Schatz was 4 years out of medical school working as a cardiologist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit when he came across the December 1964 issue of the journal ``Archives of Internal Medicine,'' which mentioned the Tuskegee study. We cannot be sure how many other people read this issue, but Dr. Schatz read it, and he was horrified.

Dr. Schatz wrote to the study's senior author, Dr. Donald Rockwell. His letter was only three sentences long. These three sentences could have put his career at risk. Here was this young doctor criticizing an investigation overseen by some of the leading figures in the American Public Health Service.

Here is what he wrote:

I am utterly astounded by the fact that physicians allow patients with a potentially fatal diseases to remain untreated when effective therapy is available. I assume you feel the information which is extracted from observations of this untreated group is their sacrifice. If this is the case, then I suggest the United States Public Health Service and those physicians associated with it in this study need to reevaluate their moral judgment in this regard.

The sad reality is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention buried Dr. Schatz' letter, and it would sit in their archives until 1972. A Wall Street Journal reporter found the letter the same year that Peter Buxtun, health service employee turned whistleblower, told the world about this horrific study.

Dr. Schatz went on to serve in a variety of hospitals. In 1975 he joined the University of Hawaii and eventually became chairman of their department of medicine. In 2009, he was named a medical hero by the Mayo Clinic because of his career but also because of the moral fury he expressed in that three-sentence letter.

Irwin Schatz was truly a hero. My prayers and thoughts go out to his sons, Jacob, Edward, Stephen, and our colleague Senator Brian Schatz, his nine grandchildren and his family.

Mr. President, I would like to speak on a separate topic very briefly.

The moment is going to finally arrive in just a few minutes when we are going to, I hope, approve by a bipartisan vote the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be our next Attorney General. This is a milestone in the history of the United States--the first African-American woman to become Attorney General of this country.

I would like to say that I am sorry--and I am--for the delay in bringing this nomination before the Senate. It should have been done long ago. She is an extraordinary person from an extraordinary family. We have been blessed with her public service for so many years, and now she has reached the top in her career to be able to serve as our next Attorney General.

I will, with a great deal of admiration and respect, be voting in favor of this nomination.

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