Several men employed by the PHS, namely Austin V. Deibert and Albert P. Iskrant, expressed criticism of the study, on the grounds of immorality and poor scientific practice.
The first dissenter against the study who was not involved in the PHS was Count D. Gibson, an associate professor at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.
He expressed his ethical concerns to PHS’s Sidney Olansky in 1955.
 Another dissenter was Irwin Schatz, a young Chicago doctor only four years out of medical school.
In 1965, Schatz read an article about the study in a medical journal, and wrote a letter directly to the study's authors confronting them with a declaration of brazen unethical practice.
His letter, read by Anne R. Yobs, one of the study's authors, was immediately ignored and filed away with a brief memo that no reply would be sent.

In 1966, Peter Buxtun, a PHS venereal-disease investigator in San Francisco, sent a letter to the national director of the Division of Venereal Diseases expressing his concerns about the ethics and morality of the extended U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which by then controlled the study, reaffirmed the need to continue the study until completion; i.e., until all subjects had died and been autopsied.
To bolster its position, the CDC received unequivocal support for the continuation of the study, both from local chapters of the National Medical Association (representing African-American physicians) and the American Medical Association (AMA).

In 1968, William Carter Jenkins, an African-American statistician in the PHS and part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), founded and edited The Drum, a newsletter devoted to ending racial discrimination in HEW.
In The Drum, Jenkins called for an end to the study.
He did not succeed; it is not clear who read his work.

Buxtun finally went to the press in the early 1970s.
The story broke first in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972, reported by Jean Heller of the Associated Press.
It became front-page news in the New York Times the following day.
Senator Edward Kennedy called Congressional hearings, at which Buxtun and HEW officials testified.
As a result of public outcry, the CDC and PHS appointed an ad hoc advisory panel to review the study.
The panel found that the men agreed to certain terms of the experiment, such as examination and treatment.
However, they were not informed of the study's actual purpose.
The panel then determined that the study was medically unjustified and ordered its termination.

As part of the settlement of a class action lawsuit subsequently filed by the NAACP on behalf of study participants and their descendants, the U.S. government paid $10 million ($51.8 million in 2019) and agreed to provide free medical treatment to surviving participants and surviving family members infected as a consequence of the study.
Congress created a commission empowered to write regulations to deter such abuses from occurring in the future.

A collection of materials compiled to investigate the study is held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
Several men employed by the PHS, namely Austin V. Deibert and Albert P. Iskrant, expressed criticism of the study, on the grounds of immorality and poor scientific practice. The first dissenter against the study who was not involved in the PHS was Count D. Gibson, an associate professor at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He expressed his ethical concerns to PHS’s Sidney Olansky in 1955.  Another dissenter was Irwin Schatz, a young Chicago doctor only four years out of medical school. In 1965, Schatz read an article about the study in a medical journal, and wrote a letter directly to the study's authors confronting them with a declaration of brazen unethical practice. His letter, read by Anne R. Yobs, one of the study's authors, was immediately ignored and filed away with a brief memo that no reply would be sent.
In 1966, Peter Buxtun, a PHS venereal-disease investigator in San Francisco, sent a letter to the national director of the Division of Venereal Diseases expressing his concerns about the ethics and morality of the extended U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which by then controlled the study, reaffirmed the need to continue the study until completion; i.e., until all subjects had died and been autopsied. To bolster its position, the CDC received unequivocal support for the continuation of the study, both from local chapters of the National Medical Association (representing African-American physicians) and the American Medical Association (AMA).
In 1968, William Carter Jenkins, an African-American statistician in the PHS and part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), founded and edited The Drum, a newsletter devoted to ending racial discrimination in HEW. In The Drum, Jenkins called for an end to the study. He did not succeed; it is not clear who read his work. 
Buxtun finally went to the press in the early 1970s. The story broke first in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972, reported by Jean Heller of the Associated Press. It became front-page news in the New York Times the following day. Senator Edward Kennedy called Congressional hearings, at which Buxtun and HEW officials testified. As a result of public outcry, the CDC and PHS appointed an ad hoc advisory panel to review the study. The panel found that the men agreed to certain terms of the experiment, such as examination and treatment. However, they were not informed of the study's actual purpose. The panel then determined that the study was medically unjustified and ordered its termination. 
As part of the settlement of a class action lawsuit subsequently filed by the NAACP on behalf of study participants and their descendants, the U.S. government paid $10 million ($51.8 million in 2019) and agreed to provide free medical treatment to surviving participants and surviving family members infected as a consequence of the study. Congress created a commission empowered to write regulations to deter such abuses from occurring in the future. 
A collection of materials compiled to investigate the study is held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.
Tuskegee Syphilis Study