Ethics Case Study: Bad Blood

After reading the case study “Bad Blood”, the primary focus of this discussion board is to talk about why people were involved in the research study, the ethical principles violated within the case study, and would the study be conducted today. There were quite a few people involved with the research study.

The people of Macon County were mostly African American, and were living in poverty (Fourtner, Fourtner, & Herreid, 2000). These people were targeted to be included in the study, because they were living in poverty and didn’t have adequate access to health care like non-poverty individuals did. According to Fourtner, Fourtner, and Herreid (2000), the health officials made it mandatory for these individuals to take part of the syphilis testing. This was done before the actual experimentation was started, and some individuals had been taking medication to help treat the disease but never had enough to cure it. The men who were involved in the study wanted to be cured, and wanted to be involved within the study because they hadn’t had any medical care in the past and this

All people have the right to choose what treatment options they are willing to undergo, but the Macon County men didn’t have a choice but to undergo the testing for syphilis. This is an ethical principal that was violated. Another ethical principle that needs to be looked at is that the study was a non-therapeutic way to look at the progression of the disease (Fourtner, Fourtner, & Herreid, 2000). This is unethical due to it is violating beneficence, nonmalificence, and autonomy. It is also violating justice, because some of the men had already started treatment, but funds were insufficient, so they discontinued it. It could also be thought of as nonmalificent because they were doing more harm than good with discontinuing the medications for these men. When thinking about ethical principles, we also need to think about if the study would be conducted