Essays on Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was a clinical study conducted by the United States Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972. The purpose of this experiment was to observe the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men who had originally been recruited for treatment but were denied it and instead observed without their knowledge or consent. This unethical medical experiment is one of the most infamous examples of human subjects research gone wrong, and its consequences still reverberate today. In 1932, researchers at Tuskegee University in Alabama partnered with the US Public Health Service (PHS) to carry out this 40-year clinical experiment on 600 black male sharecroppers living in Macon County, Alabama. The PHS promised them free medical care as well as burial insurance if they enrolled in the program, which gave them an incentive to join despite never explicitly telling them what it entailed. By keeping participants unaware that they had syphilis”or that there was any sort of serious health concern”the researchers were able to observe how untreated syphilis affected their bodies over time without interference from treatments like antibiotics which would have interrupted their observations. During these experiments, participants continued going about life as usual while receiving free medical checkups every six months or so; however, many suffered severe physical ailments due to advanced stages of syphilis left unchecked for years such as blindness and paralysis caused by neurological damage resulting from tertiary stage infection (the final stage). In addition, some unknowingly passed on the disease through sexual contact infecting partners and children alike; eventually leading to an estimated 40 deaths related directly to complications from syphilis during this period. To make matters worse, when several news stories broke nationally about other unethical public health studies around 1972″including ones involving prisoners being injected with live cancer cells”it prompted further investigation into what became known as The Tuskegee Study revealing just how horrifically wrong things went down at Tuskegee University between 1932″1972. After much public outcry ensued over the revelation that patients’ rights were violated in order for researchers gain data deemed valuable enough for publication purposes only””a settlement was reached wherein all surviving participants received $10 million dollars along with a formal apology issued by then President Bill Clinton in 1997 acknowledging: What we did was shamefulIt must never happen again. Reflective of this sentiment today are laws requiring informed consent be given before any type of experimentation can take place when dealing with human subjects research projects like those held at Tuskegee University all those years ago providing us assurance that nothing like it will ever happen again anytime soon.”
The Tuskegee Syphilis trial was a 40 years study from 1932 to 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama. The test was led on a gathering of 399 diseased and unskilled African American tenant farmers. This ailment was not; however uncovered to them by the US Government. They were advised they were going to get treatment for ill […]
The world of ethics and moral understanding of medicine was turned inside out as human rights were disregarded in an attempt to understand the anatomy of the human body, as well as its various responses to different drugs and environments. Human experimentation and subject research were of little interest to society before the 20th century. […]
African Americans are faced with a fundamental disadvantage in gaining access to HSCTs due to the high degree of genetic diversity within the population. Tracing the origins of such phenomenon leads back to the period of slavery in the Americas which entailed the exportation of millions of Africans to the United States. Ultimately regarded as […]
Introduction As of 2018, there are over 7.88 billion people living in the world. As we close in on the end of the second decades of the 21st century, it is apparent that globalization has played a large role in not only technology, economy, trade, and politics, but also in healthcare. The amount of people […]
To be completely honest, I had never heard of the terms biopower or biopolitics in my life, until reading Michael Foucault and your class. It is something that grabbed my attention specifically, and as I get older it gets easier to recognize how and why the government tries to control us. The cool thing about […]
The field of medicine is a vital part of our everyday lives, even if it never crosses our minds unless we or someone we care about is ill. There have been so many advancements in the field of medicine since its origins, they are too numerous to mention them all. Today’s medicine is the result […]
