Syphilis Research Paper

In 1932, the Public Health Service (PHS) began a study in the Tuskegee Institute to record the natural history of syphilis in hopes for finding treatment programs for blacks. It was called “Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the negro male”. The experiment was conducted on a group of 399 poor and illiterate African American sharecroppers. This disease was not however, revealed to them by the US government. The sharecroppers were told they were going to receive treatment for bad blood. The study that was carried out proved to be one of the most horrifying studies carried out that disregarded the basic ethical principles of conduct, it disregarded human life especially the African American life, blacks were not considered patients but subjects, they were considered as clinical materials instead of sick people. The Tuskegee experiment was identified as “the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history”.

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Within a fourteen-year period, two studies in different parts of the world emerged that hoped to study the disease of syphilis. Here in the United States, Tuskegee, Alabama emerged as the starting point of one of these studies, in which Public Health Services’ physicians and officers studied the deadly effects of Syphilis on African American Males. When penicillin emerged in 1943 as the main treatment, this study denied their African American test subjects the opportunity to be treated, but rather continued their study, hoping to advance the current knowledge on the effects that syphilis has on a person if it goes untreated. Farther south, within the country of Guatemala, Public Health Services hoped again to study syphilis, but with a different focus. Rather than study the effects of untreated syphilis, Public Health Services worked to study various other chemicals that could be used to prevent and contain the spread syphilis, in addition studying certain doses of penicillin and their ability to treat the disease. To do this, Public Health officials and physicians purposefully infected various prisoners, people in mental hospitals, soldiers, and prostitutes. When looking at both of these studies, various ethical issues and dilemmas are present. By using two popular ethical schools of thought: utilitarianism and Kantianism, the ethical justification or justification of these studies will be explored. When discussing both the Guatemala and Tuskegee Syphilis studies,

From a sociological perspective, I do not think that hypothesis, “The rate of progression of Syphilis may differ by race when comparing African American males to Whites” is valid as is. Race is a social construct, however the experiences that which we go through because of race is very real. That leads me to believe the hypothesis could be valuable if it were framed differently. Because of environmental factors, cultural factors, and health disparites, certain races may be at risk for a particular disease than others. I feel that maybe if the hypothesis would have been framed as “The rate of progression of Syphilis may differ by race when comparing African American males who have (certain health problem) to Whites males who have (certain health problem)” it could have been valid. However, these men would have had to receive the same exact treatments and likely be from the same SES.

Throughout the ages, while the origins to this day continue to be debated, the strength and potency of the disease have rarely been in question. Syphilis, while not viewed as a huge threat due to a decreased number of cases in the mid-late 1990s, needs to be taken more seriously by the public because it is more dangerous than many realize, especially because it is extremely contagious, it is extremely elegant in the symptoms it produces, it has played a larger part in history than many would think, and there is a certain stigma which surrounds the disease, which in turn pushes individuals away from receiving the necessary testing.

Newspaper headlines reading “Texas’ Lubbock County Syphilis Alert” or “Indiana’s syphilis rose 70% in a year” would grab almost anyone’s attention. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. Syphilis is most common among the age groups of 24-29 and 20-24 year olds. Syphilis is most prevalent in men who have sex with men and African-American men. Syphilis is transmitted during vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Congenital Syphilis is when a woman who is positive for Syphilis gives birth and the baby is now infected. There is a common misconception that all STIs will have a discharge or burn when you urinate but that is not the case with Syphilis. The infection has a window of 10-90 days where symptoms can

In 1932, the United States Public Health Service initiated a research study to determine the natural progression of untreated syphilis in African-American males in Macon County, Alabama. This experiment which lasted from 1932 to 1972 comprised of 412 men with untreated syphilis and 204 uninfected men who served as the controls. This study of “untreated syphilis in the Negro male,” is a tragic, nontherapeutic experiment in research which has violated multiple ethical principles and human rights.

With the changing tides of how Americans view the common household, same-sex relationships have begun to become more widely accepted nationwide. Same-sex marriages and LGBT adoption are now legal in all 50 states. These recent steps in legislation have been monumental for civil rights, but what effect do they have on the physical public health of the gay population? From history, it is known that the spread of disease has been higher in “immoral” sexual practices; for example, in the 1930s, some hospitals refused admission of patients with STDs and private physicians did not wish to treat these patients due to the supposed “transmission” of the disease (Eng, 1997). Sexuality and the opinion of sexual behaviors can vary by socioeconomic status,

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, commonly known as gonorrhea, is a gram-negative bacteria found in the family Neisseriaceae. This proteobacteria does not form spores, cannot move (have no flagellum), are encapsulated in a bacterial capsule, and are non-acid fast. They are diplococci, found in pairs of round kidney-bean shaped bacteria. They are small, smooth and colourless with flattened sides. These obligate aerobes need oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other nutrient supplementation (usually chocolate agar) to survive. They produce the enzyme β-lactamase, allowing N. gonorrhoeae to resist certain antibiotics. There are 70 known strains of N. gonorrhoeae, and they produce colonies after 18-24 hours of incubation.

Syphilis is caused by the bacteria Treponema pallidum and it is highly contagious disease which spread primarily by sexual activity, including oral and anal sex. Although this disease is spread from sores, the vast majority of those sores go unrecognized. The infected person is often unaware of the disease and unknowingly passes it on to his or her sexual partner or pregnant women with the disease can spread it to the baby. This disease, called congenital syphilis, can cause abnormalities or even death to the child; therefore, a serologic test for syphilis should be performed on all pregnant women at the first prenatal visit (Anderson et al., 2013).

In addition, the sex lives of older adults was long ignored and lacked in study, but is receiving the attention due to some astounding statistics. Rates of STDs such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis have doubled for the older people in their fifties, sixties, seventies in the past decade due to the lack of information

Early modern Europe was no stranger to maladies and disease. Sickness and pain were not an uncommon sight amongst all of Europe’s social strata. However, the end of the fifteenth century would see a particularly unpleasant infection. This disease, although referred to by a variety of names throughout its history, is now known by the term syphilis. Although its exact origins are not known, the first recorded case of syphilis appeared in 1495 in Naples. The disease likely found its way to the city through the mercenary soldiers of Charles VIII.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum. T. pallidum has an oddly small genome and lacks genes that encode numerous metabolic functions and classical virulence factors. T. pallidum is vastly infectious and lasts for decades in the untreated host. Early syphilis lesions result from the host's immune response to the treponemes. Treponema pallidum is a spirochetal bacterium often times are found growing in clusters. This pathogen has a protoplasmic cylinder bound by a cytoplasmic membrane, a thin layer of peptidoglycan, and an outer membrane devoid of transmembrane proteins. T. pallidum are spiral shaped, has rapid rotation about its axis, and two to three flagella at each end which allows a corkscrew like motility. It is microaerophilic and glucose-dependent; without glucose, oxygen harms motility. T. pallidum contains extremely small prokaryotic genomes and is accountable for the sexually transmitted disease, syphilis.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. It is transmitted from person to person by direct contact with a syphilitic sore, known as a chancre. The sore represents the spot where the bacterium entered the body. The disease starts as a painless sore usually on your genitals, rectum or mouth. It usually happens in stages and symptoms vary in the different stages. Symptoms may occur in different order, in the stages. Syphilis spreads from person to person by skin or mucous membrane contact with these sores. Usually chancre develop within three weeks. People do not always notice the sore as they can be painless, or even hidden within the rectum or vagina. This type of syphilis is considered primary

Although it is easily preventable, over 36,000 cases of syphilis are reported annually in the United States alone (“STD Facts-Syphilis” 2010). Treponema pallidum is the bacterium that causes syphilis. Being one of the most common STDs, syphilis is a bacterial sexually transmitted disease that acts quite differently from the other common STDs because it acts in stages. Fortunately, there are antibiotics to cure syphilis; however, there are not cures for the other health related problems that it causes.