The Tuskegee Study: An Ethical Experiment

“Tuskegee syphilis study, official name Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, American medical research project that earned notoriety for its unethical experimentation on African American patients in the rural South” (Britannica, 2016). The scientists wanted to see how syphilis affects black people differently than to white people. 400 black men were test subjects for the study without their knowledge. There was already a cure for the disease but they did not want to give the participants the cure because they wanted to see how the disease affects them. This is unethical because it gave African Americans unfair

Those who live on a very low income, who are from developing countries or are part of the lower classes agree to participate for financial reasons, and usually were not fully informed about all of the risks and side effects (Moreno). In the United States the more vulnerable segments of the population have continuously been the subjects of medical experimentation, but African Americans, including children, assumed a unbalanced burden and suffered the most brutal, and invasive of the medical experiments. In the article written by Jonathan D. Moreno, “Master Sergeant James B. Stanley volunteered to be a subject in a study advertised as developing and testing measures against chemical weapons, but Stanley was never told that the clear liquid he drank for the test contained a psychoactive drug, nor was he debriefed or monitored for the hallucinations that followed, nor did he understand the source of the emotional problems that disrupted his personal life, leading finally to his divorce in

The children are put in danger in order to advance research on the effects of lead. African-Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth century were looked at as less than human beings. The doctors did not believe they needed to get consent about the dangers of performing experiments on African-Americans as unethical. For example, the Tuskegee experiment was unethical, but the doctors wanted to find the effects of syphilis, but with black men and women as test subjects to benefit Caucasians. The Lacks family did not get to understand the significance of what their beloved family member meant to future development of scientist.

This experiment, conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service, was intent to study the natural progression of syphilis in African American male population. The study participants voluntarily participated in the study but the researchers did not properly inform the participants on the availability of treatment or the risks of the disease if untreated. To make the matter worse, the participants were deliberately led to believe that they were receiving treatment from the Public Health Service for free, while the actual treatment was being withheld to achieve the purpose of the research. In today’s point of view, it is surprising that even the federal agency did not respect the dignity of human rights for the sake of research. In Henrietta’s era, even the federal agency did not follow the proper informed consent procedure, and a prestigious institution like John’s Hopkins did not have any regulations or office such as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to govern their research protocols to protect human subjects and their rights.

This chapter reviews the long-term effect the experiment had on the African American population. Specifically, it discusses the effects the experiment has on the relationships between black and the American population and health care professionals. After the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the African American population became very critical of health care professionals, therefore, they ignored the warnings given about the prevention and epidemic of AIDS. If it was not for the experiment that rightfully made black individuals not trust health care professional the rate of AIDS would have been lower, and less people would have been infected. Overall, the chapter goes to show that it is important for health care professional to be honest and transparent with patients and the population, so that a strong relationship can be formed so that there can be advances in health

We are not seen as human enough to be consenting as well as told the truth about what they are doing to us. Black people have been subjected to many medical and social experiments throughout history. Some could even argue that the "projects" was just that, a project to see how we would could interact and live with one another. Not only this but I am currently reading a book entitled Blood sugar, which is about the pharmaceutical industry and the money it makes off of black citizens.

We All Bleed Red: Racial Conceptions of Biology and Medicine The role of racial characteristics in American medical thought is explored by Dr. Michael Byrd and Dr. Linda Clayton in their journal article, “Race, Medicine, and Health Care in the United States: a Historical Survey.” Drs. Byrd and Clayton start their article by defining “race” and “racism” in its different contexts, moving from historical ideas of race as subspecies to metaracism— defined as systematic racism, devoid of individual thought or racial malice The foundational assumption of the author’s argument is that “Black intellectual and biological inferiority has been an assumption in Western scientific and lay cultures for more than a thousand years.” (Byrd, 145)

”(Skloot, 2010, p. 50). Racism has since been abolished and is now considered discrimination; also it is illegal to do any medical procedure on uninformed patients. However in today’s society like the era before, everyone has their own opinion and although it is legally and socially unethical people can still be bias. Also the patients in the studies did not have informed consent. There are three things in which you need to have informed consent; knowing, voluntary and competency.(10/17/13)

Trevor Sommer Redtails (2012) Director: Anthony Hemingway Main Actors: Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nate Parker, David Oyelowo The Truth: Prior to the FEPC, which prohibited discrimination in the military, African Americans weren’t allowed to pilot air craft for the United States military. After the FEPC was created the Air Force established a segregated all-African American pursuit squadron based out of Tuskegee, Alabama in what was known as the “Tuskegee experiment”. The purpose of the “experiment” was determine whether or not African Americans had the ability to fly and maintain combat aircraft. The men who served in this squadron were known as the Tuskegee airmen. Throughout WWII the Tuskegee airmen gained respect for their flying

The Tuskegee experiment was not the only research study that tricked African Americans into getting procedures which then led to more distrust of science and medicine. African American women thought they were getting their appendix removed but without their consent or knowledge had hysterectomies preformed on them for no other reason than for young doctors to practice doing the procedure leaving these women no longer able to have children (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

According to Carol A. Heintzelman (2003, Vol. 10, No. 4), the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the African American male was the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history. The study began in 1932 in Macon County, Alabama, where the government used 600 men in a forty-year experiment. The purpose of the Tuskegee study was to record the history of syphilis in blacks, but to ultimately determine if syphilis had the same effect on African Americans as whites. The African American men were told that they were receiving free “treatment” for “bad blood”, in which case they thought they were being treated for different ailments. But in actuality they were being injected with syphilis and watched to see how their

The Tuskegee study of Untreated Syphilis began in 1932, mainly designed to determine the history of untreated latent syphilis on 600 African American men in Tuskegee, Alabama. 201 out of 600 men were non-syphilitic just unknowingly involved in the study as a control group This study is known to be “the most infamous biomedical research study in the U.S history”. Most of these men had never visited a doctor and they had no idea what illness they had. All of the men agreed to be a participant thinking they were being treated for “bad blood” and plus they were given free medical care and meals.

The study would ultimately prove that everyone, no matter the color of their skin, is equal when it comes to the disease of syphilis. The intention behind manipulating the men was not for the greater good of society, but instead was for the greater good of Dr. Brodus and Miss Evers. Although the actions of Dr. Brodus and Miss Evers prove to be unethical, I also find the actions to be unprofessional. Miss Evers should have informed the men of the severity of the disease, as well as how the disease is passed from one individual to another. They failed to inform their patients of many of the risks that came along with the disease.

It has now been a quarter of a century, and yet the images and heartache that still evolve when the words "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" are brought up, still haunts people around the world and touches upon many professionals such as social workers, medical examiners, and so forth. Sometimes people hear about this disgusting human experiment in a highly visible way directed to the entire country as an example of what we as a country and people, in general, should not do. This occurred when the study first made national news in 1972, when President Clinton offered a formal apology, or when Hollywood actors star in a fictionalized television movie of the story. On the other hand the audience may become fainter: kept alive only by memories and stories told in the African American community, in queries that circulate over the world wide web and radio talk shows, or even in courses such as this one being taught by social workers, historians, sociologists, or bioethicists. This is neither the first nor the last unethical human experiment done under the human study for the medical purposes umbrella, basically stating it is ok to sacrifice a few people in the name of medical research.

This study was referred to as the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis