Case Study Tuskegee

For over forty years a study conducted on 600 African American at the Tuskegee Institute in Macon County, Alabama, examined the outcome of syphilis in African Americans. These participants were uneducated and destitute, so when they were offered anything free, they did not see the harm. Of the group of 600 men, 399 who had syphilis were a part of the experimental group, and 201 were control subjects. (About Us, (n.d.)) What is the ethical dilemma in this study of syphilis? The researchers picked illiterate subjects who did not understand they had not agreed to informed consent. All subjects should be informed of the dangers of syphilis such as it can lead to a variety of painful, long-lasting and fatal symptoms, such as infection in the nerve-system, or heart difficulties. To examine the individual risk and lethal development of the disease, the researchers deprived

Ethical principles were established to help protect the human population from being unlawfully treated when involved in any type of treatment, research study, or medical decision-making. Miss Evers’ Boys provide examples, to how ethical principles were neglected to be used throughout the study. The Tuskegee study lasted a brutal 40 years and ethical principles where pushed aside, to obtain the evolution of syphilis in African American males.

The issues that were involved in the violation of the ethical principles involving human subjects include racism, paternalism, informed consent, truth telling, scientism, and whistle blowing. There were other issues that were involved in this study: double standards, maleficence, and the use of deception in research among others. The issue of racism was seen clearly in this study. Four hundred black persons were infected and two hundred served as a control group. Caucasians were not enrolled in this study. This was a violation of justice because the subjects were not treated

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was an unethical prospective study based on the differences between white and black males that began in the 1930’s. This study involved the mistreatment of black males and their families in an experimental study of the effects of untreated syphilis. With very little knowledge of the study or the disease by participants, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study can be seen as one of the worst forms of injustices in the United States history. Even though one could argue that the study was originally intended to be for good use, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was immoral and racist because only poor, uneducated black males were used in experiment, the participants were not properly informed of their participation in the

In todays society, the common consensus about human experimentation is that it is unethical, however, people in the past believed it was necessary to advance scientific discoveries. The Tuskegee syphilis study is a prime example of how scientists in the past disregarded the ethics of human experimentation to enhance scientific research. The study was an experiment where four- hundred to six-hundred uneducated African American men were tricked into being tested. Most of the patients were injected with the disease and left without treatment to discover its effects, while the others were safe being used as controls. This experiment lasted for Forty years and was probably the biggest example of unethical human experimentation in America. Fortunatley, the contrivertial actions taken in the experiment lead future generations to create the law of informed consent where the patient understands what will happen during their treatment. The inspiration for researching this topic was how in “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, by Rebecca Skloot, Henrietta was used for a scientific study without her consent. In relation to Henrietta, the men in the syphilis study were not aware of what was happening to them and were experimented on without their consent. Overall, the human experimentation in the Tuskegee syphilis study was unethical in many ways.

In the article Racism and Research: the Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, by Allen M. Brandt, he discusses a few mains point. The main points of the article is Racism and Medical Opinions, the origins of the experiment, how they selected the subjects, and the HEW final report. In the first point, Racism and Medical Opinions, many of the scientist believed that even with all the “education or philanthropy” the black Americans can’t be cured whether it has to do with diseases or crime. The black Americans also had a lot of deficits and were considered imperfection. Doctors say that the black Americans had a “sexual desire” which puts a lot of the whites in danger. They also say

The Tuskegee study is a prime example of why ethical treatment is necessary. This study took place in 1932 and dealt with African Americans who had contracted Syphilis. They were told they would get free medical exams, free meals, and burial insurance in exchange for participating in the study. The catch was that the people participating in the study who had syphilis were not treated properly. Even when penicillin became the main treatment for syphilis, the patients were not given it and were not given the option to leave the study when this happened. Ultimately, the study got shut down because it was considered unethical due to the fact that the patients were not given enough information to give real informed consent.

The book BAD BLOOD: THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT by James H. Jones was a very powerful compilation of years of astounding research, numerous interviews, and some very interesting positions on the ethical and moral issues associated with the study of human beings under the Public Health Service (PHS). "The Tuskegee study had nothing to do with treatment … it was a nontherapeutic experiment, aimed at compiling data on the effects of the spontaneous evolution of syphilis in black males" (Jones pg. 2). Jones is very opinionated throughout the book; however, he carefully documents the foundation of those opinions with quotes from letters and medical journals.

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment was an unethical scientific study funded by the US Public Health Service that was performed on African American men in Macon County, Alabama that took place from 1932- 1972. The purpose of this experiment was to study the progress of untreated syphilis in African American men; a total of “600 black men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease.” (U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, 2013) The study was conducted under false pretenses, in that the scientist lied to the patients saying they were being treated for “Bad Blood” while being provided a placebo. In 1945 penicillin was discovered to be an adequate treatment for syphilis, and everyone who could get

Throughout American history, it is evident that racism controls socioeconomic classes up until the Civil Rights movement. Racism caused a separation between white people and people of color in which non-whites were seen as inferior to white people; this caused events, as slavery, to occur and when slavery ended, segregation began. From 1896 to 1964 black people faced segregation; they were separated from whites in restaurants, schools, and in the military and no black people served in the Air Corps at all. In 1941 a groundbreaking phenomenon occurred, The Tuskegee Experiment was established. The Tuskegee Experiment was the first predominantly black Air Force unit.

The history of research ethics begins with tragic historical cases of unethical research and how they contributed toward present values and ethics in research. One of these historical tragic studies was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama. This post will discuss the unethical behavior of that study.

The doctors and the nurse were more interested in gathering scientific data than showing concern for these African men’s human rights. There was no concern for the ethical issues involving these victims. The syphilis scientific study was written about in medical journals for many years but community outrage did not happen until a reporter exposed the study to the general public. The scientific syphilis study ended after it was exposed to the public.

The male participants were not properly informed of the procedure or goal of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Instead, they were pressured into participating in this specific study. In principal of medical-surgical nursing, it is taught that the patient must be completely aware what is to proceed in the procedure, the benefits they should obtain, and possible complications of the procedure. It is also vital that the patient understands this information, that way the patient can determine if they are comfortable with proceeding with the study or not. Although these African American men agreed in participation, it wad based on other ideas and premises. The patients were under the impression that they were getting treatment, and this was not a process

The study ended in 1972, 25 years after the cure was known and publicly available. By the end of the study, 28 persons had died from the disease, 100 persons had died from related diseases and 40 wives and 19 children had been infected with syphilis. There was no informed consent. The participants were not informed of all the known dangers. The participants had to agree to an autopsy after their death, in order to have their funeral costs covered. Scientists denied treatment to some patients, in order to observe the individual dangers and fatal progression of the disease. Participants were not given the cure, even when it was widely known and easily available. The designers used a misleading advertisement: The researchers advertised for participants

The Tuskegee study was a traditional social science research with the use of intentional deception of the subjects, as means to deception to be biased to, as well as, morally wronging and harming people in favour of benefits of the knowledge gain in research. In particular, when the investigation betrayed a basic misunderstanding of the experiment’s purposes and design, as it was ethically and/or stereotypically unjustified. Moreover when the researchers regarded their subjects as less than humans, as to the nature of blacks, sex and disease (Syphilis), in order to carry out the experimentation. In light of deceptions and exploitations the experiment perpetrated, it also failed to obtain adequate treatment and well-informed consent from the