The Pros And Cons Of The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The experiment first began in 1932, in a small county within the Macon County of Alabama area. In this are rate of syphilis was up by 35%. Interestingly, the setting of the study was conducted at the Tuskegee Institute, which we know now to be Tuskegee University. The study conducted of 399 men, 201 out of the 399 were used as the control group. The control group contained of those who actually didn’t have the diseases. The study also targeted those who were poor and illiterate. A lot of those patients had the slightest clue to which they were being tested for, only being told they had “bad blood”. The doctors participating in the study thought it would be vital; to not inform

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (also known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or Public Health Service Syphilis Study) was an infamous clinical

3.) In your opinion, how should the data be used that is obtained from an unethical experiment and how can we prevent this from happening again?

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment (The official name was Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male) began in the 1930’s. It was an experiment on African Americans to study syphilis and how it affected the body and killed its victims done by Tuskegee Institute U.S. Public Health Service researchers. The initial purpose of the Syphilis study “was to record the natural history of syphilis in Blacks” (Tuskegee University, “About the USPHS Syphilis Study,” par. 2). The study was necessary because syphilis was a disease that didn’t yet have an official cure (when the study began in the 30’s). There were 600 men in all; 399 had syphilis and 201 served as a control group for the experiment. The

In Macon County, Alabama, about 40% of African Americans had syphilis. Syphilis caused by a spirochete bacterium that is contracted sexually. In the 1930’s it had relatively no cures or treatments. Syphilis progresses into three stages, the last of which begins to attack the several organ systems of the individual. The victim may become paralyzed, blind and/or deaf; develop heart problems or a mental illness, or other symptoms (Gray 37-38). They decided that they wanted to compare and contrast how blacks and whites develop the disease and the effects on each race. Years before the study of the Negro was set to begin, a similar study for whites was conducted in Oslo, Norway. This study was a retrospective look into the effects of untreated syphilis in whites. The retrospective study used case histories of those who had syphilis when they died not living patients. The U.S. Public Health Service decided to use African Americans in Macon County in the experiment. Originally titled “The Effects of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” the experimentations took place at the Tuskegee Institute which is why the study is generally named the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Jones 93-94). The Rosenwald Fund, a foundation that funded many programs that were used in the betterment of African-Americans began funding this project. After the Stock Market crash of 1929, and the start of the Great Depression, the Rosenwald Fund has to withdraw all the funds that they

The first reason behind why the Tuskegee syphilis study was unethical was because of the experiments racism towards African Americans. In

Throughout the history of psychological studies unprincipled violations have constructed ethical standards that are essential in today’s research. These moral dilemmas created established professional and federal standards for performing research with human and animal participants, known as, psychological ethical codes. The Tuskegee syphilis study and the Stanford prison experiment highlighted a psychological study without proper patients’ consent and appropriate treatment, resulting in a research disaster with unethical incidents.

Many of the healthcare workers such as doctors strongly believed that there was a racial difference in the symptoms of diseases. The white doctors often thought that African Americans “contracted syphilis because of their ever-increasing low standards of sexual morality” (24). The participants had to be men about twenty five years of age with syphilis who had not been treated for the disease. It was quite simple to gather a group of people in Macon County because it was a poor community with bad hygiene. Many men who participated in this study have never seen a doctor in their life which willingly made them to be part of this study. The African Americans did not know about the healthcare terms and were taken advantage of by white doctors who contributed to this study. In fact, the doctors had no intention in helping the participants to be cured from syphilis.

The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1932-1972 in Macon Country, Alabama by the U.S Public Health Service. The purpose was to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S government; about four hundred African American men were denied. The doctors that were involved in this study had a shifted mindset; they were called “racist monsters”; “for the most part, doctors and civil servants simply did their jobs. Some merely followed orders, others worked for the glory of science” (Heller) The men that were used for the study got advantage of, especially those

During this time the Rosenwald Fund was initiated by Julius Rosenwald to assist in educating the African-Americans in the South by supporting the construction of schools for black students. Shortly after the withdrawal of the Rosenwald Fund, Dr. Taliaferro Clark, who was selected by the surgeon general as the reviewer of the Rosenwald Fund, realized the potential of the opportunity to study Macon County Alabama's African-American males and sparked the idea of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. This study was the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history (Jones pg. 91). Therefore, Jones' purpose was to document the experiment in a way that the reader would see all points of view, yet still realize without doubt, the implications of this study.

According the to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was conducted in 1932 by the Public Health, which included 600 black men as their test subjects. Of the 600 men, 399 had syphilis and 201 didn’t (CDC). The men were told that they were being treated for “Bad Blood” and didn’t have any knowledge of being included in a study (CDC). In exchange for their services, researchers offered the men free medical exams, burial insurance, and free meals (CDC). The study was called “ The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” (CDC).

The book, Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, by James H. Jones, was one of the most influential books in today’s society. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment study began in 1932 and was terminated in 1972. This book reflects the history of African Americans in the mistrust of the health care system. According to Colin A. Palmer, “James H. Jones disturbing, but enlightening Bad Blood details an appalling instance of scientific deception. This dispassionate book discusses the Tuskegee experiment, when a group of physicians used poor black men as the subjects in a study of the effects of untreated syphilis on the human body”(1982, p. 229). In addition, the author mentioned several indications of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotype toward this population. Also, this book provides multiple incidents of the maltreatment of human beings. The reader is able to identify the incompetence of the helping professions and violation of human rights, ethical issues, and dehumanize African Americans.

In 1932, in the area surrounding Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Rosenwald Foundation began a survey and small treatment program for African-Americans with syphilis. Within a few months, the deepening depression, the lack of funds from the foundation, and the large number of untreated cases provided the government’s researchers with what seemed to be an unprecedented opportunity to study a seemingly almost “natural” experimentation of latent syphilis in African-American men. What had begun as a “treatment” program thus was converted by the PHS researchers, under the imprimatur of the Surgeon General and with knowledge and consent of the President of Tuskegee Institute, the medical

The trolley problems consist of hypothetical scenarios in which you, as a bystander, must decide who to save in a variety of set ups. For example, you, as a bystander, can switch the track of the trolley to hit one worker rather than five. In another example, do you push one person off of a bridge to stop the trolley from hitting five workers, thus saving five individuals as opposed to one? Or do you let the trolley run its course and hit the five workers? These questions are useful in bioethics because they cause a person to think carefully about their beliefs and test their consistency. In the first example, one person might opt to change the track so only one person gets killed as opposed to five. Following the same moral principle that killing one is better than killing

The Tuskegee syphilis study was the longest held study in the United States. The study continued for 40 years, from 1932 to 1972 which at that time a civil rights attorney ended the study and filed a lawsuit claiming the study carried out unethical methods. The Tuskegee study included only African American males with the diagnosis of syphilis. The study initially was to determine if the African American male progressed differently with the diagnosis compared to the white male. However, throughout time it appeared that the study moved to see how African American