Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment Case Studies

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment was a case study conducted by the United States Public Health Service, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that is responsible for fostering health and safety in the country. The case study was conducted from 1932 to 1972 in the city of Tuskegee, Alabama. In this study, 399 African-American men who had syphilis, and 201 African-American men who were used as control groups were used as the subjects of this experiment. The main objective of this experiment was to observe the natural progress of untreated syphilis in African-American men. Most of those who were experimented on were impoverished and hadn’t had access to education. However, the main conflict of this study was

Furthermore, the study subjects were not provided with the known treatment for syphilis, penicillin, when it was discovered to be an effective treatment. The conduction of the experiment was halted in 1972 after public outcry, however, by that time, it was too late for many of those who participated in the experiment. By then, 128 of the participants had passed away from syphilis-related complications and 40 of their wives had contracted the sexually transmitted disease. In 1974, two years after the experiment, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) filed a lawsuit on behalf of those impacted by the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. The lawsuit resulted in the United States government paying ten million dollars to the remaining participants of the experiment and their families along with free health-related services. The Tuskegee Syphilis study has caused a great uproar in the field of medical ethics. It is considered among the most egregious violations of healthcare ethics. Furthermore, it has drawn light upon the issue of medical racism and the exploitation of

Care ethics is the philosophical and ethical approach that emphasizes interpersonal relationships, compassion, and care between those patients and healthcare professionals. It stresses the interconnection of people and acknowledges the importance of intuition, sentiments, and emotions in making moral decisions. The first violation discussed was the lack of informed consent. Respecting the people’s bodies, especially those who are disadvantaged and marginalized is a crucial principle in care ethics. In the Tuskegee Syphilis research, the participant's right to make fully informed healthcare decisions was violated because neither their diagnosis nor the study's purpose was disclosed to them. A care ethics approach would emphasize and prioritize the agency and empowerment of their patients. This could be done by educating and informing the participants of their condition, their human rights, and the arrangement of possible available treatments to them. Furthermore, the researchers must inform the participants of the purpose of the study and be transparent with them. The second major violation in the study was the lack of beneficence. Despite the fact that there was an effective and available treatment option available in the Tuskegee trial, the participants of the study were not provided access to it, nor were they informed about it, which went against the beneficence principle. A care