Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Clinton Kopas
Susan Gabriel
English 102
December 1, 2011
The Goal of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Research studies are constantly being conducted in order to improve certain aspects of human life and knowledge. In many cases, these research studies involve human test subjects. One of the more famous studies involving human test subjects was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that began in 1932. Most have heard of this study, few would ever claim that any good came of it. What had originally been a research study aimed at improving knowledge dealing with syphilis in the black male, turned into an extremely long and detrimental study that damaged hundreds of lives. Considering the damage that was done to the subjects and their families, it is easy to wonder if this study actually provided any real advances in medicine or medical knowledge. The origin of the study had good motives, being that it was to promote the health of blacks in the South. The U.S. Public Health Service collaborated with the Julius Rosenwald Fund to conduct demonstration programs to control syphilis in southern counties. This failed due to funding issues, and the project had to be scrapped. However, the PHS was anxious “to salvage something of value from the project” (Thomas). So in 1932, a group of doctors recruited a total of 399 syphilis infected black men from Macon County, Alabama to participate in a study concerning the study of “bad blood”. The organizers took their initial idea and converted “the original treatment program into a nontherapeutic human experiment aimed at compiling data on the progression of the disease on untreated African-American males” (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner). This study became formally known as the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner; Thomas). The formal name that was applied to this study may imply the true motives of the researchers behind it. The study was not necessarily meant to find major breakthroughs in
Susan Gabriel
English 102
December 1, 2011
The Goal of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Research studies are constantly being conducted in order to improve certain aspects of human life and knowledge. In many cases, these research studies involve human test subjects. One of the more famous studies involving human test subjects was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that began in 1932. Most have heard of this study, few would ever claim that any good came of it. What had originally been a research study aimed at improving knowledge dealing with syphilis in the black male, turned into an extremely long and detrimental study that damaged hundreds of lives. Considering the damage that was done to the subjects and their families, it is easy to wonder if this study actually provided any real advances in medicine or medical knowledge. The origin of the study had good motives, being that it was to promote the health of blacks in the South. The U.S. Public Health Service collaborated with the Julius Rosenwald Fund to conduct demonstration programs to control syphilis in southern counties. This failed due to funding issues, and the project had to be scrapped. However, the PHS was anxious “to salvage something of value from the project” (Thomas). So in 1932, a group of doctors recruited a total of 399 syphilis infected black men from Macon County, Alabama to participate in a study concerning the study of “bad blood”. The organizers took their initial idea and converted “the original treatment program into a nontherapeutic human experiment aimed at compiling data on the progression of the disease on untreated African-American males” (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner). This study became formally known as the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (Herried; Fourtner; Fourtner; Thomas). The formal name that was applied to this study may imply the true motives of the researchers behind it. The study was not necessarily meant to find major breakthroughs in
Cited: Fourtner, A. W., C. R. Fourtner, and C. F. Herreid. ""Bad Blood": A Case Study of the Tuskegee Syphilis Project." Philosophy.tamucc.edu. Texas A&M University. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. Reverby, Susan M. "Listening to Narratives from the Tuskegee Syphilis Study." Lancet 377.977B (2011): 1646-647. TheLancet.com - Home Page. Web. 28 Nov. 2011. Thomas, Stephen B. "The Legacy of Tuskegee." Thebody.com. HealthCentral Network, Jan.-Feb. 2000. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. "The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment." Infoplease.com. Pearson Education, 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2011. Villarosa, Linda. "The Guatemala Syphilis Experiment 's Tuskegee Roots." Theroot.com. The Slate Group, 02 Oct. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.