The Tuskegee Syphilis Study Controversy

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

Everyone who has learned about World War II should know about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was during the same period of World War II. “What is it called the Holocaust?” you may ask. The Holocaust originates from the Greek language and means “completely burnt offering to God.” How does this relate to the Holocaust where almost 8 million Jewish people died? In this essay, you will be informed about the main leader of the Nazis, why saying that Hitler only captured Jews is historically inaccurate, concentration camp treatment, and five atrocious experiments done by the Nazi soldiers to innocent prisoners.

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.

It has now been a quarter of a century, and yet the images and heartache that still evolve when the words "Tuskegee Syphilis Study" are brought up, still haunts people around the world and touches upon many professionals such as social workers, medical examiners, and so forth. Sometimes people hear about this disgusting human experiment in a highly visible way directed to the entire country as an example of what we as a country and people, in general, should not do. This occurred when the study first made national news in 1972, when President Clinton offered a formal apology, or when Hollywood actors star in a fictionalized television movie of the story. On the other hand the audience may become fainter: kept alive only by memories and stories told in the African American community, in queries that circulate over the world wide web and radio talk shows, or even in courses such as this one being taught by social workers, historians, sociologists, or bioethicists. This is neither the first nor the last unethical human experiment done under the human study for the medical purposes umbrella, basically stating it is ok to sacrifice a few people in the name of medical research.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was conducted on the effects of syphilis when it remains untreated. Improvised African American males, unaware of the study, and unaware that they suffered from the contagious disease, were being used to research how

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 tem ethics refers to the moral principles that guide a person’s behavior, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of their actions. In the field of nursing, these moral principles govern the relationship between the nurse and the patient, members of the healthcare team, and society at large. Nurses must constantly question whether a certain procedure or course of treatment is in the best interest of the patient. When viewing the film “Miss Evers’ Boys”, it was clear that the doctors, researchers, and even Miss Evers were not acting in the best interest of all the patients. This movie depicted true events of a study that took place in Macon County, Alabama, in 1932. This study was referred to as the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis

September 1, 1939, the start of World War II, regarded by many as the worst point in history. More than 85,000,000 people died in the years of 1939 to 1945. Adolf Hitler said something that sums up what the Germans were trying to accomplish during WWII, “Today Germany tomorrow the world.” Hiroshima and the Tuskegee Airmen are two things that greatly affected people and the war in general. Without Hiroshima and the Tuskegee Airmen the war may have ended differently.

Have you ever wanted to know what it is like to be in mid air warfare? That is what the Tuskegee Airmen did. They were one of the best Airmen the U.S ever had. They flew during World War II and protected U.S bombers. They were one of the most accomplished Airmen and Gunmen the U.S ever had.

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment was an experiment conducted on 399 black mean during the course of forty years. The subjects for this experiment were illiterate

In response to the horrific and disgusting acts of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, measures were put into place in order to prevent of a another disastrous incident from repeating. It was a political embarrassment to the government. The governing system at the time allowed the experiment to continue for decades before it was exposed to the public.Human subjects in the experiment were manipulated and exploited. It failed to protect its people and turned a blind eye to any unethical proceedings that took place during the experiment. As a result, the National Research Act of 1974 was proposed and signed into law on July 12, 1974..

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.

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.

Many social and political changes have taken place in the American society in the past few decades that make it unlikely for a study such as the Tuskegee study to not be widely criticized. The major social change that has taken place is a result of social media. Social media plays a major role because it is a way to quickly spread information around the world. Social media allows people around the world to share their experiences and opinions about all types of issues, thus allowing them to educate others about different situation that are occurring. Political changes that have occurred include new rules that guarantee what happened in the Tuskegee study does not happen again. There are now laws that require every study to be examined and approved by committees before any experiment involve humans is

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