The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment is a study that happened from 1932 to 1972 among African American individuals in Macon County in the United States. Of the six hundred individuals only four hundred had contracted syphilis while the rest were used as controls. The main aim of the experiment was to determine whether African Americans reacted the same way as white individuals who also ailed from the disease. Also, it was to determine how long untreated individuals lived with the disease. However, the participants did not know that they were part of an experiment and hence the many unethical issues were derived from the issue (Smolin & David 2011). This review highlights the Tuskegee experiment shedding into light some of the ethical issues concerned with it as well as other ways in which the experiment could have been handled differently.

The United States Public Health Service conducted the study which was supposed to last for six months but ended up taking forty years. The participants were told that they had bad blood which was a false allegation. None of them were told that they had any sexually transmitted infection. They were to be treated for bad blood and they therefore willingly participated in the experiment especially since they had been promised treatment. Over time, there were extreme effects from the experiment as the patients showed advanced symptoms, about forty wives contracted the illness and nineteen children were born ailing from congenital syphilis.

However, the government still denied them treatment even after penicillin was discovered as a cure for Syphilis.The doctors denied them treatment despite some patients operating advanced symptoms such as blindness and going insane. They were committed to their study as they wanted to use endpoint autopsy for the final results. They therefore willingly let the individuals die and only offered fifty dollar compensation for the victims’ families which was the burial compensation. However, it was not until after Perter Buxton who was a disease investigator exposed some of the unethical methods used in the experiment. There was congress hearing on the unethical issues portrayed and came up with guidelines that would protect individuals who were subjected to research. Also, the individuals received a sum of a million-dollar compensation in what was described as a profoundly wrong experiment (Crenner & Christopher 2012).

No doubt, the experiment violated human rights by violating various medical codes. According to Green & Lee et al, there was racial discrimination during the experiment based on the selection of the participants (2011). The participants were male African American individuals and not any other race. The selection was not accidental but was a predetermined decision since black individuals were considered inferior to whites. The experiment moved from what was a normal stay to being a racial experiment. Voluntary informed consent is an ethical principle that dictates that medical experts are obligated to disclose any medical procedures to the research individuals. In this case, individuals engaging in a medical experiment are supposed to know all details entailing the study. The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment did not observe this ethical consideration as they did not disclose the details of the study to their patients. It is unethical to use decisive measures to gain someone’s consent in a medical experiment. Even though most participants of the research were uneducated, it was unethical to conduct medical experiments such as the spinal tapping and body piercing without full knowledge of what is being done. Informed consent includes patients being made familiar to the research and all the procedures involved in the case as well as the implications to get the full truthful consent

Truth-telling is an ethical issue that requires medical experts to tell the patients the full details of the research before performing any medical procedures on them. It gives individuals all the facts about the experiment It builds trust between the individual and the medical expert something that was not considered during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The participants were lied to from the beginning and told that they had bad blood and we’re not told what they were being used to do. Worse still the government uses lucrative things such as free meals and giving free rides to the individuals to the clinic.

However, there are various ways by which the research experiment would have been handled. Some individuals lost their lives and this would have been avoided if various other ethical measures would have been conducted. For instance, the research experiments would not have waited until the patients had adverse symptoms for them to be treated. Each patient deserves the right to healthcare and if this was executed then death would have been avoided. Also, had the medical experts informed the individuals on the real contents of the experiment they would have only received individuals with their truthful consent on the situation (Greaney & Anna-Marie et al 2012).

The most unethical thing is that the experiment was not a secret as the United States Public Health Services were part of it. The doctors conducted medical experts during the study meaning they knew what was being done was ethically wrong but even as professionals, they supported the project. Conclusively, the study was quite unethical and racially discriminative. However, the exposure of these unethical practices led to medical ethics improvement such as the establishment of the National Research Act that protects individuals in medical cases

Work Cited

Crenner, Christopher. “The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the scientific concept of racial nervous resistance.” Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences 67.2 (2012): 244-280.

Greaney, Anna-Marie, et al. “Research ethics application: A guide for the novice researcher.” British Journal of Nursing 21.1 (2012): 38-43.

Green, B. Lee, et al. “Detailed knowledge of the Tuskegee syphilis study: who knows what? A framework for health promotion strategies.” Health education & behavior 38.6 (2011): 629-636.

Smolin, David M. “The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, social change, and the future of bioethics.” Faulkner L. Rev. 3 (2011): 229.