...The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was a clinical study of untreated syphilis in hundreds of poor African American men. The members of the study thought that they were receiving free healthcare from the United States Government, and were told only that they had “bad blood.” Throughout the experiment the men remained unaware that they had syphilis. Even with the development of penicillin, the standard treatment for the syphilis, the men went purposefully untreated for the sake of the experiment. The study lasted forty years. Along the lines of the Catholic Social Teaching, this study is entirely unacceptable. First and foremost, the experiment is in total disregard of dignity. Humans are created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore...
Words: 255 - Pages: 2
...The Tuskegee Syphilis Study began in 1936 in Macon County, Alabama, at the Tuskegee Institute. Researchers at the institute conducted this study to follow the natural course of syphilis in black males. Before the study was put into progress, there was no known treatment for syphilis. In this study, there was a total of 600 men, 399 of which were infected with syphilis, and 201 who were not. These 201 men were used as the control group of the study. Most of these men were poor and uneducated sharecroppers that were living in Macon County at the time of the experiment ("About the USPHS Syphilis Study"). This experiment was originally supposed to last about six months, but continued for 40 years ("U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee")....
Words: 1768 - Pages: 8
...1932, the rural town of Tuskegee was a mostly black town that was governed by whites. World War II had not began, though there was trouble brewing in Europe as these countries began to pacify the fiery German giants who would later commit unspeakable acts, one that horrified Americans who had little knowledge of what was going on in a little Alabama time all at the government’s behest. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment began in 1932, after the venereal disease section of the PHS created a c study group at its national headquarters to study the sexually transmitted disease known as Syphillis. The man behind the plan was Dr. Taliaferro Clark, a senior officer in the PHS who planned only for the experiment to last for six to nine months, before treating the men and ending the study. He contacted Tuskegee University (then Tuskegee Institute) to gain their cooperation to expand the study into a real-word environment and study the effects. The PHS then invited poor and poorly uneducated African-American men to come to the Institute to receive free medical exams and treatment. They also provided meals and...
Words: 2132 - Pages: 9
...The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Some Ethical Reflections 75 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Some Ethical Reflections Adebayo A. Ogungbure Department of Philosophy University of Ibadan, Nigeria philosopher.bayo@yahoo.com Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New Series, Vol.3 No.2, December 2011, pp.75-92 thoughtandpractice@gmail.com http://ajol.info/index.php/tp/index Abstract There are established ethical principles to protect human participants in biomedical research from undue exploitation by researchers. However, in the “Tuskegee Study” in the US, these principles were grossly violated. The task of this paper is to critically examine the ethical implications of that study on future practices in biomedical research, and to suggest ways of ensuring that such practices comply with appropriate ethical values. Key Words Bioethics, Biomedical research, clinical research, Tuskegee Study, paternalism, morality Introduction From time to time human beings experience health challenges, whether physical or mental. On its part, medical practice has made considerable progress towards combating or controlling many of these challenges. It is through research that the nature, symptoms and effects of ailments can be ascertained and remedies discovered. Medical researchers engage in both therapeutic and non-therapeutic research. Therapeutic research is that carried out with the purpose of treating disease. On the other hand, non-therapeutic...
Words: 6565 - Pages: 27
...Human trial experiments had existed for a very long time. Informed consent should be made mandatory in this type of experiment to prevent innocent people suffering from injustice such as injury and death. This is because every human being has a right to their own body. Every injury or death cause by other people can cause commotion and indirectly lead to war. Informed consent was already mentioned by Claude Bernard in 20th century. He mentioned that the experiment involving human should never be carried out if it has harmful effects even though the benefits are large. Informed consent is a process whereby the patients, clients and research participants are all fully aware of every detail in a process including the potential benefits and risks. Consent must be given voluntarily for valid informed consent. Nazi’s experiment was the example of experiment that did not apply this concept. During World War II, Nazi’s doctors carried out abundance of cruel human experiments under force including freezing, twin, poison, artificial insemination and many more. In one twin experiment, Dr. Josef Mengele ripped out a baby directly from its mother’s womb and left the baby in an oven. From my points of view, there was no control over the Nazi’s experiment as there was no authority which stood up to prove that their action was wrong. Nazis felt that their action was legally correct as they carried out this experiment under the pressure of military needs. I think it also because of the victims...
Words: 491 - Pages: 2
...Tuskegee Study Ezequiel W. Ferreras EN1320 - Composition 1 ITT Technical Institute ABSTRACT This paper is to prove how the Tuskegee study was morally and ethically wrong. Many of the men involved in the study died due to the experiments. This study has made it important for all patients to understand their options for treatment and outcomes and know that they have a choice. Any one can deny treatment if they wish to do so. Many doctors devote their lives to their patients and have learned from this major medical error. Tuskegee Study Some people may believe they don’t need to try as hard if they already achieved their goal, but if a physician does not do their best a patient can die and if no one did their best then there would be no doctors, lawyers or even teachers. However, when you apply the unethical concepts in this study it violates the professional code of ethics and the moral reasoning of the study. Albeit it is for a test to make history the obligations of a nurse are very important and must be followed. In Miss Evers’ Boys, physicians investigate in a medical study that takes place in Tuskegee Alabama, which dealt with watching African-American subjects discover the effects of untreated syphilis. The major objective of the study was to search for African-American males in the second stage of syphilis, and then from time to time perform exams on these men to find out the effects that syphilis had on their bodies. (Grey 1998) Raymond A. Vonderlehr...
Words: 2316 - Pages: 10
...information concerning the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, there is a small assortment of books to choose from. I chose The Tuskegee Syphilis Study by Fred Gray because he was the lawyer in the lawsuits against the government, and I thought that he would be able to provide the most in-depth analysis of the event because he was actually involved in it. It was also written fairly recently, so that enables the book to analyze the long term effects that it has had on African-Americans, the South, and history in general. Gray’s book provides a very informative study, but if you’re looking for more information, check out James Jones’ Bad Blood. Gray takes a lot of information from this book which was written about 20 years before his. When searching the web for information on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the results were quite slim. Most of the results involved syllabi for college classes or websites much like our own that were prepared for a class. The website that I reviewed is from the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics, which was actually created from President Clinton’s apology and ideas for improvement of racial relations and medical testing. The webpage’s main purpose is to educate the public about the atrocities that were performed on African-Americans in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, and to help prevent an event like this from ever happening again The Tuskegee Syphilis Study by Fred D. Gray examines a medical study that occurred in Tuskegee, Alabama which dealt...
Words: 2331 - Pages: 10
...Ethics Analysis Topics: The Tuskegee experiments. There are numerous ethical guidelines in Biomedical Research on human subjects. The increasing research in developing countries and the international guidelines released by the developed countries in 2002 had its focus on the observation of ethical norms for the protection of research subjects (Indian Council of Medical Research 9). The year 1932 was when the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) started its Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Biber 83). This study involved the inspection of untreated latent syphilis cases in human subjects and tried to find out the natural course of the disease. The sample for this study consisted of three hundred and ninety nine black males from Tuskegee, Alabama with late-stage syphilis and two hundred and one non-infected males. Along the years research has been undertaken without the consent of the subjects. The Weber State University website indicates their involvement in the formulation of research guidelines under the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Under the Public Health Service Act there is a regulation to protect human subjects of research and implement a guidance instruction on ethical issues. Three basic principles of ethics were formulated to protect human subjects in biomedical and behavioral research. One of the principle advocates for respect for persons which involves recognition of personal dignity. The second principle aims at ensuring that subjects are protected...
Words: 931 - Pages: 4
...Bioethics- Tuskegee Syphilis Study BACKGROUND FACTS In the early 70s, the Washington Evening Star newspaper published this headline on its front page: "Syphilis Patients Died Untreated." (CDC) This headline revealed one of America's most dishonorable medical studies, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. From this very moment, the public knew the long-hidden truth about this notorious study. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) initiated the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Their goal was to investigate stages in advancement of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease caused by bacterium that may cause death if untreated. (CDC) Furthermore, the study wanted to investigate how syphilis affects blacks compared to whites. They hypothesized that whites experienced more neurological complications while blacks experience more cardiovascular complications. The study used 399 poor black sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama with dormant syphilis. An additional 201 healthy, unaffected men that were part of the study served as control subjects. Many bioethical values were largely violated. The physicians conducting the study misled the men from the beginning of the experiment. They purposely told men that they had “bad blood” and that they would treat them. Instead, these men were given a placebo. Physicians made sure that they did not receive treatment or help from anyone else. The reward for this “therapy” was free meals, free medical examinations and free burial insurance...
Words: 2186 - Pages: 9
...The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Some Ethical Reflections 75 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: Some Ethical Reflections Adebayo A. Ogungbure Department of Philosophy University of Ibadan, Nigeria philosopher.bayo@yahoo.com Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK) New Series, Vol.3 No.2, December 2011, pp.75-92 thoughtandpractice@gmail.com http://ajol.info/index.php/tp/index Abstract There are established ethical principles to protect human participants in biomedical research from undue exploitation by researchers. However, in the “Tuskegee Study” in the US, these principles were grossly violated. The task of this paper is to critically examine the ethical implications of that study on future practices in biomedical research, and to suggest ways of ensuring that such practices comply with appropriate ethical values. Key Words Bioethics, Biomedical research, clinical research, Tuskegee Study, paternalism, morality Introduction From time to time human beings experience health challenges, whether physical or mental. On its part, medical practice has made considerable progress towards combating or controlling many of these challenges. It is through research that the nature, symptoms and effects of ailments can be ascertained and remedies discovered. Medical researchers engage in both therapeutic and non-therapeutic research. Therapeutic research is that carried out with the purpose of treating disease. On the other hand...
Words: 6565 - Pages: 27
...From time to time human beings experience health challenges, whether physical or mental. On its part, medical practice has made considerable progress towards combating or controlling many of these challenges. It is through research that the nature, symptoms and effects of ailments can be ascertained and remedies discovered. Medical researchers engage in both therapeutic and non-therapeutic research. Therapeutic research is that carried out with the purpose of treating disease. On the other hand, non-therapeutic research is aimed at 76 Adebayo A. Ogungbure furthering the frontiers of knowledge about human health. Furthermore, researchers and physicians often use human beings as objects of scientific investigation, raising certain ethical concerns, including the issue of informed consent and how consent is obtained, selection of participants in research, the welfare of human subjects involved in a research project, what the goals of research ought to be, and what ought to constitute proper procedure for an ethical research. These issues are central to an aspect of applied ethics which is now commonly referred to as research ethics. The aim of research ethics is to ensure that research projects involving human subjects are carried out without causing harm to the subjects involved. In addition, it provides a sort of regulatory framework which ensures that human participants in research are not exploited either physically or psychologically. The need for ethical guidelines...
Words: 6425 - Pages: 26
...results • Failing to maintain participants’ confidential information • Using participant information for unintended purposes such as selling goods or services Summarize the article you researched. Write a 750-word paper in which you address the following questions: • What unethical research behavior was involved? • Who were the injured parties? • How has the unethical behavior affected the organization, the individual, and society? • How could the unethical behavior be avoided or resolved? In the 1932 case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was a 40-year project administered by the US Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama. The study consisted of 400 men being promised free treatment for an epidemic of bad blood in their county. The treatment was withheld from the men and was never given. The study was tested on a group of African American men who were told they had bad blood and never received standard treatment for syphilis,. Syphilis is a sexual transmitted disease. It can lead to a range of painful, chronic and deadly symptoms, such as infection in the nerve-system, or cardiovascular-complications. Even-though the cure of penicillin was available the men were never informed of the research design or it's risk to them. What made this case highly unethical is that the experimenter's never received informed consent, the participants were unaware of the known dangers, Scientist denied the treatment to some patients to observe the progression of the fatal disease...
Words: 693 - Pages: 3
... 1 Introduction The United States has been known for its role in different research. The era of the 1960’s proved to bring some interesting practices in society. It was a time that curiosity found its way into science, psychotherapy, and experimental social pleasure. The 1960’s the United States saw the government; specifically the CIA conduct experiments on the hallucinogenic drug, LSD. They used a host of individuals from the military to the mentally ill. In an effort to justify the experiments they relied on earlier research and the potential for military warfare. Researchers did not inform participates of the fact that they were taking LSD. To add to the lack of honesty and integrity they were not aware it would expose their gametes to possible damage. Researchers also used information of participates data forms to track individuals thought to be dissident during a period of wars. After all the experiments and chances taken by research subjects; they compromised lives and future generation and made LSD illegal in the latter 1960’s. Final Assessment 2 1. To what extent did the government have an obligation to inform the research subjects of possible genetic damage to their future offspring? The United States Government is as any other...
Words: 1818 - Pages: 8
...Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment Name University of Phoenix Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment was a 40 years study from 1932 to 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama. The experiment was conducted on a group of 399 impoverished and illiterate African American sharecroppers. This disease was not; however revealed to them by the US Government. They were told they were going to receive treatment for bad blood. The study proved to be one of the most horrendous studies carried out that disregarded the basic ethical principles of conduct. It symbolized medical and disregard for human life. Standard medical treatment at the time were toxic, dangerous and, often time questionable in respect to effect. Some of the studies were being addressed to determine if a patient was better off not being treated at all. Researchers also tried to prolong any treatment to study the different stages of syphilis so they may be able to find a more suitable means of treatment. Medical ethics during this time did not have standard for informing patients. Information often withheld regarding their condition so patients often went through testing and treatment with little knowledge of consequences. By experiencing the study the participants were kept in the dark about the disease so they would co-operation. During this time these men were considered subjects, not patients. They were not considered patients, but clinical material instead of sick people. Most of the experiments...
Words: 1490 - Pages: 6
...but also encompass a broader range of principles. The notorious Tuskegee study in Alabama that began in 1932and ended in1972 studied black men with syphilis. The study violated ethical principles in that informed consent was not obtained, confidentiality was violated and treatment was withheld when it became available. The study is well known, because of the tragedy it caused for many people and also because of the sheer lack of ethical consideration shown by the scientists concerned. The United States Public Health Service conducted a study for that began in 1932 and lasted until 1972, not the six months that was expected and is described as "the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history" (Brunner, 2009). The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was conducted from 1932 to 1972 around Tuskegee, Alabama. Six hundred poor, and mostly illiterate, African-American males, 400 of whom were infected with syphilis, were monitored for 40 years. Free medical examinations were given; however, subjects were not told about their diagnosis. Even though a cure (penicillin) became available in the 1950s, the study continued until 1972 with participants being denied proper treatment or given fake treatments and placebos, instead. In some cases, when subjects were diagnosed as having syphilis by other physicians, researchers intervened to prevent treatment. Many of the subjects died slow and painful deaths of syphilis during the study, which was stopped in 1973 by the U.S. Department...
Words: 1066 - Pages: 5
