Tuskegee Syphilis Essay

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Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male Forty years ago, 600 of African Americans were horrifically involved in the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. In Macon County, Alabama illiterate black men were taken advantage of and were treated like objects instead of human beings. These victims were told they needed to be treated for having “bad blood”, including fatigue, anemia and syphilis. Instead, they just being observed because of their sexually transmitted disease, syphilis. Syphilis is an STD/bacterial infection that starts off with a painless small sore the can eventually end up covering the whole body and can damage your heart, brain and other organs. Even today, if the infection is not treated can be very life threatening and could easily take someone’s life. This experiment is one of the most infamous racist studies that effected hundreds of people and goes against the whole concept of basic ethical principles of conduct. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment study was originally intended to gain knowledge of how syphilis affected blacks, compared to how this disease affected whites. It was theorized that the whites experienced more neurological problems as blacks suffered from more cardiovascular damage1. However, even if this were true, the knowledge wouldn’t have changed treatment for the disease. At the time the study began, there was no known treatments for the disease. As they were trying to discover a treatment for the disease, the participants were given very toxic and dangerous treatments which often resulted in the participant to become even more sick, or even result in death. Some of the participants would have been better off with no medical treatment at all. When the study first started, there were no treatments for syphilis. When the antibiotic penicillin was found in 1945, the researchers refused to give the treatment to the participants in both groups (experimental and control). Information was mostly withheld from the participants about their conditions, making them have no knowledge of what was happening. These African American men were treated like objects rather than human patients. The doctors that participated in these trials acted as if they were clinical material instead of their regular patients. Seeing how most of the data that was collected was from the autopsies, it was clear that these doctors just waited for the men to pass away from the awful side effects before they collected data. Syphilis leaded to several life threatening illnesses like tumors, heart disease, and paralysis that the doctors simple ignored, just to study the anatomy of an African American. These men could not protect themselves from what was happening to them. The compensation that the participants were given did not compare to the long term, life changing consequences that they undertook. They were “compensated” with free rides when they were called in on examination day, meals when they were there, and free treatment for their ailment. …show more content…
At first, many did not believe that they were going to receive this help for free because never before in the past were they treated with respect and empathy. As soon as the study started, rules had been broken. One the participants were recruited, the researchers tested the participants for specific symptoms those with syphilis would have, but instead of telling them specifically that they had syphilis, the doctors told them they just had “bad …show more content…
The doctors had no proof that the black men wanted to participate in the experiment. The participants needed to be informed of the experiment and all of the risks that came with it. However, the men were never informed and consent was never given, not even verbally. Informed consent states any risks involved with the experiment and makes them aware to the participants. Then they are given the choice to participant or not. This is not the case for the Tuskegee experiment. The men were not even given a chance to deny their participation. If was simply said that if you had bad blood then they were going to give them treatment. Even though most of the participants did not ask what bad blood was, the doctors were still obligated to tell them what the risks were, which they never

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