Tuskegee Study Essay

In 1932 the American Government conducted a study named the Tuskegee Syphilis study, this project was administered by the US Health in Macon County, Alabama. The Government promises 600 plus African American citizens access to free medication and access to proper health care. This study subjects was all tested positive for Syphilis when they enrolled for the study. However, these subjects were denied medicine and were experimented on to help the Government to better understand the Syphilis virus. The men in this study weren’t aware of the research design and possible danger to them and their families. (Carol Heintzelman 2003 p.1) This study went on for the next forty years.

The Tuskegee study was an experimental study composed of Doctors, Nurse, Government officials and the U.S Public Health Service. The study was performed to recognize

Initially the participants have been told that they were treated for “bad blood”, but they did not receive any treatment from the experiment (“About,” n.d.; “The Tuskegee,” n.d.).

In the 1920’s and 1930’s syphilis was very prevalent and feared among most populations. The U.S. Public Health Service wanted to learn more about this disease and they launched six pilot projects in poor southern communities. One project was conducted in Macon County, Alabama. This project, called the Tuskegee study, was a clinical study of untreated syphilis in negro males. The Tuskegee project was meant to discover ways to improve quality care for the black community. This initiative aimed at achieving greater knowledge of syphilis spanned the course of forty years, from 1932 through 1972, before it was stopped based on ethical dilemmas.

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

Experiments such as the “Tuskegee Study of Syphilis in the Negro Male” has taken the lives of the victims involved in the study. This is an infamous study government officials conducted in 1932, the objective of this study was to record the effects of syphilis in black people (About Us).

In conclusion The Tuskegee Syphilis study had left individuals in the science field with unkind memories of how doctors neglected the oath they took to save lives, how the government also neglected their oath because of the color of someone’s skin and the value assigned to their lives in the name of science. For forty years they continued to experiment with human lives as a mere means to an end. The Tuskegee Study was inhumane, horrendous and broke so many basic ethical principles but the most important consequences. The study has forced the medical/science field to construct several scientific codes that no medical/ science individuals or company should ever break. These codes which came from several ethical principles were derived are also

In 1932, the Tuskegee Institute partnered with the Public Health Service in Alabama and began a research study on how certain infectious diseases spread through the population. They also studied what those diseases did inside the human body to cause them to pass away. Their study focused on 400 black men affected with Syphilis in a southern Alabama county. Out of which, no subjects were told of their condition. What this withhold of important information is a major violation by the International Review Board (IRB) standards. As a result of this omission of information, syphilis continued to spread through and fatally endanger the families and community that surrounded the 400 subjects. Those experiments on the illnesses of human subjects had many violations in the IRB Code of Ethics. For example, the omission of telling the patients of their condition was a breach of the Informed Consent protocol for the subjects. Also, the refusal of treatment for the men breaches the factors of

Historically speaking, the treatment of humans and animals has been poor in the name of research. Instances such as those occurring in Nuremburg and Tuskegee set forth a foundation for governance in research of human subjects. Respect of the individual’s autonomy and the beneficence must be demonstrated in the study.

Tuskegee’s study of untreated syphilis is a notorious clinical study that was initiated in 1932 and ended in 1972. This study was initiated by the US Public Health Department and performed by the government physicians. The main purpose of this study was to assess the natural progression of the untreated syphilis. They included 399 men who had syphilis and 201 men who hadn’t have syphilis. Initially the study started to treat the syphilis, but even after there was no enough budget, they didn’t stop the study. The physicians had promised that the study participants were given free treatment of the syphilis but the fact was that the physicians and “US Public Health Department” were assessing the progression of the syphilis and not giving the treatment to the participants. Participants were unaware about this clinical research. In addition to this, participants were told about insurance, but they hadn’t been provided insurance.

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

experiment on human being in the medical history of the US. The practitioner on the Tuskegee

they were being examined and treated for what was termed “Bad Blood.” “Bad Blood” was categorized as having fatigue, malaria, and syphilis. Those that participated were promised hot meals, free medical exams, and a burial insurance for taking part in the study. A study that was presumed to last 6 months ended up lasting 40 years. Within the 40 years, many of the men that “thought” they were being treated died due to non-treatment. They were utilized as subjects in order to see the outcome of having untreated syphilis. The 1972, The Tuskegee Study finally ceased due to the high risk it posed for its subjects.

This study was a symbol of unethical conduct and racial discrimination in medicine primarily because of two reasons. First, the subjects were never told that they had syphilis and thus, informed consent did not play any role in this experiment. Secondly, the subjects were told that they were being treated for “bad blood”, a term used in the local language for various illnesses such as anemia and fatigue. In reality, however, the officials never treated the subjects for syphilis. The subjects were only provided free medical exams, free meals and burial insurance in return for their participation in the study. The only permission which was taken from the subjects was that to autopsy their body after death as also paying for their burial. Thus, the Tuskegee experiment can be described as non therapeutic experiment that lasted for a very long duration of 40 years. (Reverby, S.M., 2009)

“Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study” describes the happenings in the 1932 study for untreated, latent syphilis in black males. The study was conducted to determine what the natural course of untreated, latent syphilis was in black males. When the experiment first took off, a treatment was unknown. In the experiment, four-hundred men with the disease, and two-hundred without were tested. The subjects were chosen through physical examinations. The men had to be syphilitic black males between the ages of twenty-five and sixty. To summarize, the purpose was to see what the course of untreated, latent syphilis was in syphilitic black males between the ages of twenty-five and sixty.