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.”

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Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
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1230 words 5 pages

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2416 words 9 pages

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2457 words 9 pages

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