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The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

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The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: compliance with the American Psychological Association’s ethical principles for research with the human participants.
Roman Yakubov
Hudson County Community College

Research that involves human participants raises a lot of ethical questions and concerns. Ethics refers to the norms or principles that generally guide any research as well as whether research activities are conducted the right or the wrong way. Additionally, ethics are the moral principles that govern the behavioral component when a certain activity is conducted, in this case the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (citation?). In summary, the Tuskegee Study is a medical research that was conducted over an extensive period of time from …show more content…

Researchers of the Tuskegee study clearly targeted and capitalized on a group of participants who did not have sufficient education and did not have a good socioeconomic standing to make a knowledgeable decision whether to participate in the study or not. Education on its own is one of the crucial aspects for individuals to make knowledgeable and educated decisions. The lack of either standard created a perfect setting for researchers to exploit the low social standing of the African- Americans men in the Tuskegee study. In addition, African-American men were coerced and misled to participate by promises of incentives such as “free lunches, transportation and medical care” (ref. Tuskegee Study article). Consequently, patients did not have a proper informed consent or the required to skills or tools to make an educated decision to either continue with the research or to quit. The study went to great extent to prevent its participants from actually obtaining information about the purpose of the study and treatment when it became available. One of the examples in the study paper explains how the draft during World War II was abandoned specifically as it related to the Tuskegee participants. (cite) Patients were misled by coercion into accepting participation without a choice to make an educated decision to continue with the study that provided no …show more content…

It was one of the longest study that had the backing of the United States Public Health Services (USPHS). In conclusion, even though the article talks about the group of males’ participations at free will, the experiment on African- American males was one of the cruelest that lacked diversity and was full of coercion and violated many APA ethical principles as well as simply impeded on the rights of human beings by withholding the available treatment to

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