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Essay On The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

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In the 25 years since the secrets of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment were revealed, it has become a powerful symbol of racism, medical miscount and the abuse of the vulnerable. The study, initially involved 600 black men, all whom were residents of Macon County, Alabama. The purpose of the study was to examine the progression of Syphilis among black males as it was left untreated. Before the test began the diseases causes and effects were well understood; and there was already a known cure “penicillin”. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was morally, legally, socially and politically wrong. This procedure was an endangerment against human nature. Ultimately this study harmed more people than it helped. Even though some people say that the data collected on all stages of syphilis ultimately helped more people that it harmed, the U.S government of the 1950’s acted with …show more content…

Doctors violated medical ethics stated in the Hippocratic Oath which states: In every house where I come, I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or men, be they free or slaves. “The physicians conducting the study merely observed and recorded the progress of the disease in the men.” (World Book). When Penicillin (the first real cure for syphilis) for syphilis was discovered the Tuskegee men were deliberately denied the medication. “She clarifies how PHS physician Raymond Vonderlehr learned in 1938 that previous treatment of as many as 40 percent of his study subjects would very likely negate the validity of any data he might collect about them.” (Reverby. 92). The doctors did not care about the well-being of the patients at all. One doctor explained; “as I see it, we have no further interest in these patients until they

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The Public Health Service ran many tests on men who were in the late stages of syphilis, a stage called tertiary (Jones, 1993, p. 1). Prior to the experiment

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Dr. Clark ended up retiring, and Vonderlehr took his place as the head of venereal studies of the PHS. He then went forward with his plan to turn the nine month study into a long-term follow-up study of untreated syphilis in the black male. Vonderlehr went on developing all the policies for the next part of the experiment. Little did he know these policies would be in place for the next 40 years. Dr. Vonderlehr’s assistant and mentee was a man named John R. Heller.

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In Tuskegee, Alabama a group of men were chosen for an experiment involving the observation of how syphilis occurs in black men and its long term non-treated consequences. At the time of the experiment, the only treatment that was available was a heavy metal therapy; however, the scientists believed it was doing more harm than good. Therefore, they did not inform the men about the treatment and distracted them with basic incentives like hot meals and transportation. When penicillin, a cure for syphilis, was discovered the doctors made the decision to shield the cure away from the men. This is proof that scientists are

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I personally would not have condoned the study if I was a nurse in the 1930s and was asked to be involved. As a nurse, I could not subject someone to a medical condition knowing that they would not receive treatment and eventually pass away. It is our responsibility as nurses to assist patients in recovering, not to exacerbate their illness. Another study that violated ethical standards was the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital Study of 1962–1963 was unethical because Chester M. Southam, the supervising physician, gave live cancer cells without the patients' written agreement to twenty-two chronically sick, non-cancer patients. By saying that he "did not wish to stir up any unnecessary anxieties in the patients" who had "phobia and ignorance" about cancer, Southam sought to defend his conduct (not telling his patients).

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The final stage, also known as "late" syphilis, begins 3 or more years after infection. About 40 percent of the infected progress to this stage. At this stage, the person may no longer be contagious, but the bacteria have multiplied and spread throughout the body, damaging the majority of the major organs and nerves within the body. A few years before the Tuskegee Experiment, there was another syphilis experiment that was conducted on the white population to see the long-term effects as well, but because of many people's views syphilis affected African Americans differently than Whites; the theory was that syphilis affected are different in every way, especially their blood, which led researchers to focus on African Americans to see if the disease affected blacks differently than whites. For over 40 years, this experiment was had infected over dozens of African American men had gone untreated, those who were used for the experiment were told that they had ‘bad blood’, and were also not informed of the true nature of the experiment.

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An Analyzation of Beneficence Throughout world history, many immoral research studies have been performed on human subjects. The film, Miss Evers’ Boys, does an outstanding job of portraying a study that was implemented in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1932 (Benedetti, Fishburne, & Sargent, 1997). Miss Evers’ Boys creatively depicts the Tuskegee Experiment, of which studied the natural course of syphilis in African American men. Although penicillin became known as a treatment for syphilis during the 1940’s, the subjects remained deliberately untreated by researchers for decades (Burns, Gray, & Groves, 2014). The striking unethical acts performed in this study helped pave the way towards the founding of The Belmont Report, a set of regulations written to protect human research subjects in 1974 (Burns et al., 2014).

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Besides that, this study was started in 1932 to 1972; it was 40 years of this cruel study, and this study is completely unethical to all of the patients. Sadly, during that time, the 400 infected men were lying by

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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.

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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.

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The purpose of that experiment was to understand the progression of syphilis over human body. However, the experiment involved six hundred black men, this disease infected 301 of them and

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Reflection: The Ethics of Research How does the Tuskegee Study of Untreated syphilis relate to the principles in the Belmont Report? The Tuskegee Study, conducted between 1932 and 1972, was an infamously unethical research study led by the U.S. government. It involved withholding treatment from African American men infected with syphilis, even after effective treatment became available in 1947 (Nix, 2023). The Belmont Report, published in 1979, was a response to such egregious ethical violations in research and aimed to establish guidelines and principles for the protection of human subjects.

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Lasting forty years, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study still stands as the longest and most well-known case of researchers’ abusing African American subjects of an experiment in unethical ways. In 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) started the project as a way to study the manner in which syphilis presented itself in blacks verses in whites. Researchers used 600 poor African American sharecroppers in Macon County, Alabama, as test subjects. The researchers also never told the subjects what was happening to them. For years, the subjects were under the impression that they were receiving free medical treatment for their illness; however, in reality these government medical personnel were withholding treatment and gathering data on syphilis.

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(Nix, History.com) The superiors decided to form a committee to evaluate what was going on in the study. The conclusion was that the researchers were allowed to continue the study so they could track all of the men until they have all died. Another reason this study was so unethical is because people outside of the study knew what was going on and didn’t stop them. According to cdc.gov, local African American and white physicians were recruited not to treat the men.

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The study would ultimately prove that everyone, no matter the color of their skin, is equal when it comes to the disease of syphilis. The intention behind manipulating the men was not for the greater good of society, but instead was for the greater good of Dr. Brodus and Miss Evers. Although the actions of Dr. Brodus and Miss Evers prove to be unethical, I also find the actions to be unprofessional. Miss Evers should have informed the men of the severity of the disease, as well as how the disease is passed from one individual to another. They failed to inform their patients of many of the risks that came along with the disease.

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In the movie “Miss Evers Boys”, Nurse Eunice Evers takes an offer to work with two doctors on a program that was federally funded to treat patients afflicted with the syphilis disease in Tuskegee Alabama. The patients were only men and they agreed to take part in it because of the free treatment. After a while the program ended and money was offered to conduct an experiment. The experiment was the study of the effects of the syphilis disease on these men, specifically African Americans, whom didn’t receive treatment. Nurse Evers finds out from doctor Brodus that the four hundred plus men along with 200 uninfected men who served as controls, will be studied and not treated.

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