The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study had lots of controversy over the 1900´s. The study happened in a racist and poor time period between 1932 and 1972. It included 600 African American men that were infected with Syphilis. It was conducted in rural and poor Tuskegee, Alabama. The test was to see if African American males responded to Syphilis differently than white males. This study was passed and funded through Congress; however they did not know the full story. The wrong in this study was that the men did not give informed consent and did not receive any treatment. The men were studied till their autopsy, which is obviously death. This sparked much controversy and changed human experimentation forever.

The Tuskegee syphilis study was conducted in Alabama by the U.S. Public Health Service to study how untreated syphilis would progress by using poor African-American men who were being told they would be receiving free medical care. Subjects were not made aware of the disease and even after penicillin was found to cure syphilis, the men remained untreated by researchers. The failures of this study led to more protections being set for participants of clinical studies. The study in part lead to the Belmont Report and Institutional Review Boards developing to protect human subjects. Informed consent, communicating diagnoses, and reporting test results became a requirement in

Based on our past history (e.g., the Tuskegee experiment) it is now crucial to apply confidentiality and informed consent in studies, especially human subjects. Therefore, harm can reduced as much as possible. I feel the past history is a lesson that social scientists should avoid in studies. All human subjects are required to understand the risk factors and procedures in a study they are participating in. If they require confidentiality, researchers should also agree. Like you have mentioned they are helping researchers gain valuable evidence and this should be respected.

This is known as the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which governs research ethics in studies involving human subjects in order to ensure no ethical violations would occur and the patients were protected. Unfortunately it took these 600 African-American men and their families to help create a review board in order to make sure patients rights in biological experiments such as this one are reviewed to confirm patient’s rights and ethical principals are being followed throughout human

The Tuskegee Syphilis study disregarded the health of African American men, targeted these men because of their ethnicity and lack of education and withheld an effective treatment from these men in an effort to continue the study. Also, these men were not provided with information concerning the study and this inhibited their right to make the conscious decision to participate. The Stanford Prison Experiment failed to minimize harm to the participants. The prisoners were mistreated, degraded, humiliated and endured severe emotional and psychological distress. The experiment ended after six

James H. Jones authored the book Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment was a study of 600 African American males that started in 1932 and ended in 1972 (Jones, 1993, p. 1) The study was not beneficial. This paper will summarize the book Bad Blood as well as address theoretical perspectives, methodology, and ethics of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

The four core ethical principles that are called into question in the movie “Miss Evers’ Boys” are autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Autonomy refers to the right of the patient to function independently and the ability to self-direct. This means that patients are entitled to decide what will happen to them, and if deemed competent, they have the right to either consent to or refuse treatment. All nurses and healthcare personal would be required to respect the patient’s wishes, even if they do not agree with them. Beneficence is the core principle that refers to the act of ‘doing good’ and advocating for the patient. All nurses should take positive actions to help their patients and to have the desire to do good. On the other hand, nonmaleficence is the core of the nursing ethics and it revolves around the idea that nurses have to remain competent in their field as to avoid causing injury or harm to patients. Nonmaleficence also requires all health care professionals to report any suspected abuse. The last ethical principle is justice. This ethical principle revolves around the idea that all patients must be treated equally and fairly. This includes fairly distributing resources and time among all patients. During the Tuskegee Study, one can clearly see that these ethical principles

They were told that they were being treated of ‘bad blood” and the doctors who conducted this study had no intention of curing the patients of syphilis at all; their focus of the experiment was to see the symptoms from beginning to end. The doctors of the experiment persuaded people to join the trial by offering to pay for burial services and by providing care for their illness which they thought was something else. This experiment targeted African Americans that had no education level to know that they were being manipulated. They were taught to believe that doctors were there to help and nothing they would do would harm them. Like when the only real cure for syphilis was discovered the patients were denied of treatment. The first major ethical issue that should be considers is informed consent, which is informing the research participants what they are participating and all aspects of the project/ experiment that might cause the patient to not participate. The second issue is withholding treatment for the purpose of research. As doctors and caretakers it is the job to take care and cure rather than

The human race has greatly benefitted through the use of animals. They have not only been a great form of companionship for people, but have also helped with the success in the world of medicine. For many years, the rights of animals and animal experimentation have been up for debate on whether or not it should be legal. Some may find that animal testing has led to major advancements in the medical world and that it is a small price to pay to save millions of lives, but others believe it is inhumane and that animals should be given the same rights as humans. Although the experimentation of animals has furthered medical knowledge, it should not be allowed because it is brutal and animals are unable to give their approval.

Stanford Prison Experiment is a popular experiment among social science researchers. In 1973, a psychologist named Dr. Philip Zimbardo wants to find out what are the factors that cause reported brutalities among guards in American prisons. His aim was to know whether those reported brutalities were because of the personalities of the guards or the prison environment. However, during the experiment, things get muddled unexpectedly. The experiment became controversial since it violates some ethical standards while doing the research.

The Tuskegee study of Untreated Syphilis began in 1932, mainly designed to determine the history of untreated latent syphilis on 600 African American men in Tuskegee, Alabama. 201 out of 600 men were non-syphilitic just unknowingly involved in the study as a control group This study is known to be “the most infamous biomedical research study in the U.S history”. Most of these men had never visited a doctor and they had no idea what illness they had. All of the men agreed to be a participant thinking they were being treated for “bad blood” and plus they were given free medical care and meals. But unfortunately, the experiment was also never clearly explained to them, they had thought it was just the best possible treatment expected to cure the sickness they might have had.

The children are put in danger in order to advance research on the effects of lead. African-Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth century were looked at as less than human beings. The doctors did not believe they needed to get consent about the dangers of performing experiments on African-Americans as unethical. For example, the Tuskegee experiment was unethical, but the doctors wanted to find the effects of syphilis, but with black men and women as test subjects to benefit Caucasians. The Lacks family did not get to understand the significance of what their beloved family member meant to future development of scientist. Nor did the black families exposed to lead. Scientist to know what they know today has benefited millions and their legacies are passed on as break-throughs in

The subjects that survived the Tuskegee experiment did not find out what was really being done to them until forty years after the fact ("The Deadly Deception"). All of this deceit caused African Americans to not want to trust white doctors and it is hard not to agree with them. Deborah, Henrietta Lack’s daughter, was afraid that researchers were doing something harmful to her mother and that is why she died (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [pg.186]). Deborah heard about the Tuskegee experiment and how supposedly the doctors were injecting the subjects with syphilis, and so Deborah was really paranoid about doctors and what they were really doing (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks [pg186]). This sort of treatment and disregard for African Americans rights as humans leave them no other choice but to not trust science and medicine. The Tuskegee experiment was not the only research study that tricked African Americans into getting procedures which then led to more distrust of science and medicine. African American women thought they were getting their appendix removed but without their consent or knowledge had hysterectomies preformed on them for no other reason than for young doctors to practice doing the procedure leaving these women no longer able to have children (Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

“A Question of Ethics” by Jane Goodall and “Animal Research Saves Lives” by Heloisa Sabin presents two sides of the same coin in regards to Animal testing. Thereby, questioning the validity or necessity of animal research and testing today. In “A Question of Ethics” by Goodall she presents a scenery of the living conditions of the animals which are often isolated; posing the ultimate questions of, whether animal research is essential to medical research? Or How many tests are performed only to conform to laws and not out of scientific merit? The Suggestion was made that scientists should explore alternative options, such as testing on cell and tissue cultures. On the other hand, Sabin also puts forward an argument in support of animal testing, as her dear late husband Albert Sabin conducted many tests on animals whilst perfecting his vaccine against polio. The sacrifice of these animals has enabled entire generations of humans to grow up without fear of the crippling effects of polio. Animal rights advocates who see animal experimentation as cruel and wasteful overlook the fact that it has been instrumental in developing medicines that have saved countless human

If someone searches human experimentation online it will tell you that human experimentation can be broadly defined as anything done to an individual to learn how it will affect him or her afterwards. Experimentation on a human being is the experimentation of humans to help find cures and to help fight off things like illnesses or diseases. It can also help provide us with the medicine and knowledge of what medication should be used to treat the injury or illness medication treats things. Like headaches, sore muscles, injuries, and many more things. There is a lot of debate over human experimentation and whether it is right, if it works, or if it is needed at all. Experimentation on humans, while sometimes beneficial, often has resulted