The Deplorable Treatment of African Americans in Medical Research

This essay examines the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, wherein for 40 years (1932-1972) hundreds of black men suffering from advanced syphilis were studied but not treated. The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards; primarily because researchers knowingly failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease they were studying. To explore the role of the racism in the controversial study, this essay analyzes the article written by Allan M. Brandt.

Skloot discussed the Tuskegee Study and how a research project on hundreds of poor African-American men was conducted without proper informed consent and manipulative bribing. With what happened to the Lacks family, being so close to the “Tuskegee Experiment” era, the introduction of informed consent and federal regulations was making its way into becoming a bigger issue and necessity. Some argue heavily that there were not Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to hold hospitals and medical research accountable in their work. With ethics and principles absent, hospitals were doing what they were accustomed

This book revealed on how racism is involved to the development of American medicine and on how adversely affected African American lives and health (Gamble, V., N., 2014). To include, Tuskegee syphilis study were researchers recruited hundreds of African-American men with syphilis and watch them die slow in a preventable death, even when researchers realized it could be cured taking penicillin. fourthermore, Mississippi

The Tuskegee Experiment, is one of the most well known blunders of United States medical research in the 20th century. Not only was it entirely unethical and inhumane, but it also highlighted the problems of racism and inequality in the medical world and the entire country at that time. By examining and reviewing the history, consequences, racism, results, and conclusion of the Tuskegee Experiment, it can perhaps shed some light on the barbaric events that transpired throughout the research.

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 research agendas that occupied the American medical community during the twentieth century involved the controversy in making medicine a research science. Research-based medicine made enormous strides with discoveries such as penicillin and insulin, however led to issues with medical ethics. The following documents cite a highly controversial research project in the mid-20th century, the Tuskegee experiment that had a profound effect on protecting the rights of subjects in human experimentation. Michael Shimkin discusses in his paper, “A Leading Research Scientist Embraces the Nuremberg Code as a Guide to Ethical Practice in an Age of Human Experimentation, 1953,” the proper way of using people in medical experiments. Vanessa Gamble’s essay, “A Legacy of Distrust: African Americans and Medical Research,” looks at the relationship between race and American medicine to explain how the African American populace became the chose demographic for Tuskegee project. In Dr. Irvin Schatz’s letter to Dr. Donald Rockwell, Dr. Schatz questions the morals of physicians who worked on the Tuskegee Study

The Tuskegee Study has radically changed the views and practice of medicine and ethics. The 40 year long study impacted 600 African American men and their families. It began as a scientific investigation of syphilis as it affected black men. Back in the 1930’s, it was thought to be true that black men were genetically different from white men and that black men’s bodies reacted differently to syphilis. The goal was to see what would happen to the men who had syphilis if they were left untreated (CDC, 2009). Not only did this study affect those directly involved, but also future generations as well. Many things let this highly unethical study continue for way too long. With the end of slavery not far off from the start of The Tuskegee

In the Tuskegee Study, the main cause of these actions was to record the natural history of syphilis among African Americans. Scientists took six hundred men to be studied and out of those men, three hundred ninety-nine of them were infected with syphilis (Tuskegee University, n.d). Those men were the experimental group and the other two hundred and one were the control subjects’ syphilis (Tuskegee University, n.d). The study took place in Macon County, Alabama. The intentions of choosing those specific subjects were because the individuals were poor and illiterate sharecroppers from the county (Tuskegee University, n.d). People know the study very well because of the lack of ethical consideration towards the African American men. Throughout

Scientific research on African Americans has been a topic swept under the carpet for decades. The black population has lost trust of doctors and their medical practices as a result of the cruel medical treatment in the past. Whether the research was performed behind closed doors or spoken about publicly, society has questioned the role and importance that African Americans play in the medical field. African Americans today still feel the pain that their ancestors did at the hands of some doctors for the overall benefit of scientific research.

It is rather unusual to read or watch documentaries detailing atrocities against mankind and come away with hope and faith. The compelling and heartfelt story of Vertus Hardiman “A hole in the head” has inspired and received praise from professional groups across the country. “Hole in the head: A life revealed” is a heartfelt story which encompass injustice and forgiveness, reflecting the unbelievable strength of an individual who endured severe tragedy through the power of faith and personal philosophy. Watching this documentary raise important ethnical issues which by the way, isn’t the idea or theme of this paper. The story of Vertus Hardiman represents another chronicle of injustice carried out on the African-American community in the US. I am currently studying Pharmacology which involves mechanism for drug action and lots of clinical trials before new drugs are place on the market, after watching the documentary I couldn’t help but to think about the notion that African Americans or other diverse populations are less willing to participate in medical research. Having learnt about stories of horrifying experiences with clinical trials such as in the cause of Vertus Hardiman , Lyles Station radiation experiments, and the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in African American male, common knowledge would dictate mistrust as a source for reluctance to get involved with Clinical trials.

While the history of American medical ethics dates back four centuries (Baker, 2013), it is critical to differentiate between what was strictly medical ethics; the ethics between physician and patient, physician and physician, and physician and community versus bioethics: all of the aforementioned with the addition of scientific research involving human subjects “…in reaction to researchers’ exploitation of vulnerable populations, most notably the 399 African-American males deceived into serving as research subjects by the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) in its Tuskegee, a Syphilis Study”. (1932-1972) (Baker). Prior to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, physicians, along with other medical professionals (midwives, nurses), traditionally rendered services based on a sizeable range of oaths and codes that aimed for just care and treatment of patients. The Belmont Report articulated not only what was morally outrageous about the Tuskegee Study, identifying that “Earlier American ideals of just treatment differ from those expounded in the Belmont Report” (Baker), but became the origination for bioethics. Baker expounds that social unrest and morally disruptive technologies furthered the exponential growth of as well as the recognition of the importance of the field of bioethics. Since then, the medical and research communities have understood the necessity of teaching and incorporating bioethics into the education of future practitioners of medicine and science but have not

Freimuth and colleagues (2001) examined a wealth of research suggesting that the dark history of the Tuskegee study increased African Americans’ skepticism towards medical science. Since there was paucity in qualitative studies of African Americans, the authors interviewed around sixty African-American participants from four U.S. cities (Freimuth et al., 2001). Participants were asked to share their knowledge of the Tuskegee study and their feelings towards participating in medical research (Freimuth et al., 2001). African American participants unfortunately cited that the medical researchers’ motives for performing studies that required human participation ranged in monetary gain to personal success (Freimuth et al., 2001). Some participants in Freimuth et al.’s (2001) study admitted that they were not fully cognizant of the informed consent process and would usually accept participation without knowing their rights. This finding poses a serious ethical issue that violates the principle of nonmaleficence (APA, 2010). When participants viewed a Hollywood film portraying the Tuskegee study, they felt that African Americans were poorly represented in the film (Freimuth et al., 2001). They cited several stereotypes of African Americans within the

Brandt, A. M. ( 2010) Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study´. In

Historically, the social, legal and religious mistreatment of racial and sexual minorities, amongst others, has been well-documented, and persists across the world today. During the years of slavery, Black slaves were often subjected to excruciating medical experiments. Most famously,

Involvement of human subjects is vital to the advancement of scientific study, however, without understanding or implementing bioethics studies risk repeating the atrocities done prior to the creation or reformation of guidelines. When Scott et al. completed their study on chloramphenicol, another ongoing study on African-American men in Tuskegee was occurring. The participants in the Tuskegee experiment had syphilis and were under the impression they were being treated for “bad blood”, but were denied penicillin regardless of proof penicillin treated syphilis4. Tuskegee experiments and Scott et al.’s study used unethical means to understand qualities of disease and medicine; syphilis and chloramphenicol, respectively. In the Tuskegee experiments informed consent was absent, moreover, participants were coerced to join the study under the false pretense of receiving