Essay On The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

In 1932, a study called The Tuskegee Syphilis study had just begun in Macon County, Alabama. The study in the beginning had involved a small group of 600 black men, and throughout the time of the study’s existence those numbers would change by either death of individual or an addition of a new black man added to the study. In the study, of those 600 men, an estimated 400 were purposely left unaware of the fact that syphilis infected them and they were not being treated for the disease. The main hypothesis in the study was the study of the natural course of syphilis in black male, and there were no questions asked if this was the study was ethically the right thing to do. This study would go on for about 40 years, and end in 1972 due to being exposed in an article by the Associated Press. The exposure of the study would lead the US government and the medical world down a path of change, those changes deal with patient’s knowledge of the experiment and ethics involved in human experimentation. The main issue when dealing with this study was how unethical
One example of that fear, was AIDS, many blacks per the CDC website feel that AIDS was created to eliminate the black population. The only good things to have come out of the study was a code to not only protect doctors from malpractice but to make sure that all individuals involved in any sort of experiment are well informed of what the experiment is all about. There was no true science involved, most of what was being done to the men was already known, and all meanings of the word it was unethical. “The Tuskeegee Syphilis Study remains one of the most outrageous examples of disregard of basic ethical principles of conduct (not to mention violation of standards for ethical research)” (Protection from Harm: The Tuskeegee Syphilis