Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Clinton Kopas Susan Gabriel English 102 December 1, 2011 The Goal of the Tuskegee syph survey look into studies are constantly cosmos organiseed in order to improve received aspects of valet tone and knowledge. In umteen cases, these enquiry studies involve merciful test subjects. One of the more(prenominal) famous studies involving human test subjects was the Tuskegee pox Study that began in 1932. Most squander heard of this try, few would perpetually claim that any right-hand(a) came of it.What had originally been a look athletic field aimed at improving knowledge dealing with syphilis in the scurrilous male, false into an extremely long and detri workforcetal meditate that sufferingd 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 hearty advances in medicine or medical knowledge. The origin of the study had easily motives, being that it was to promote the h ealth of drearys in the South. The U. S. Public Health operate col science laborated with the Julius Rosenwald Fund to conduct demonstration programs to control syphilis in gray counties.This failed due to funding issues, and the project had to be scrapped. However, the PHS was anxious to salvage almostthing of value from the project (Thomas). So in 1932, a group of rejuvenates recruited a tote up of 399 syphilis infected forbidding custody from Macon County, Alabama to get in in a study concerning the study of insalubrious blood. The organizers took their initial bringing close together and converted the original discussion program into a nontherapeutic human experiment aimed at compiling data on the progression of the malady on untreated African-American males (Herried Fourtner Fourtner).This study became semiformally known as the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the lightlessness Male (Herried Fourtner Fourtner Thomas). The formal name that was applied to t his study may imply the on-key motives of the researchers buns it. The study was not necessarily meant to find major break dones in medicine, precisely to simply study the effects of untreated syphilis. The researchers attempted to comelyify what they were doing by saying it was going to be for a greater good, and that these men got more discussion than they would have gotten otherwise.This may be true in a sense, but the men in the study were still intentionally withheld from treatment once penicillin was known to cure syphilis. By 1948, penicillin was known to be the close to and best hard-hitting cure for syphilis. The study went on for 22 more old age so far though a cure had been found. There is no point in attempting to learn anything more about an infection when a cure has been found. The unaccompanied treatment that the infected men received was treatment involving arsenicals and heavy metals.This type of treatment was not nearly as effective and researchers knew i t would not cure the men entirely, just keep them from being pathogenic (Reverby). It might not be going too far to heretofore say that the researchers were conducting this experiment on the basis of pure curiosity. After all, at that pip could not be much advancement made just perusal the effects of syphilis in blacks compared to whites. Much about syphilis had already been known prior to the beginning of the Tuskegee Study. German scientists had already discovered virtually of what there is to know about syphilis over 20 years before the Tuskegee experiments had begun. The cause of syphilis, the stages of the diseases development, and the complications . . . . were all known to medical science in the early 1900s (Herried Fourtner Fourtner). It has been stated by many journalists and heretofore some that were regard in the experiment, that nothing was gained from this long and drawn out experiment. all in all signs begin to point that it truly was an experiment based solel y on curiosity. The black men that participated in the study were poor sharecroppers that would do and commit anything that the doctor told them. Most of these men had never even seen a doctor before in their lives.These men were promised free medical care for their bad blood, and drawn in by signs that claimed last chance for treatment. The doctors and scientists conducting the research had church leaders and other respected members of the community help to blueprint people to participate in the study. The researchers even enlisted the help of a black nurse and admired her ability to help them gain the trust of the participants. If the researchers requisite to lie to a group of people in order to conduct their experiment, these men would have been some of these easiest to fool (Infoplease Thomas).The researchers that were involved in the Tuskegee Study are said to have been fairly liberal for the time and undetermined to the education of blacks. However it seems that there was some sort of racist judging set involved in this scheme. The researchers seem to have had no pick up to other human life and treated the men like lab rats. The researchers even made sure that their goal would not be disrupt by others. They went to great lengths to make sure all medical professionals in the area participated in the study and gave orders not to give treatment to the men.The black men were even excluded from the draft during WWII to keep their research from being break up (Herried Fourtner Fourtner Thomas) As the years went by, the study did not become less nonionized and forgotten. There were meetings held and new people were added to the project. The experiment was constantly reviewed throughout the years as the focus changed. Ethical issues were not brought up until halfway through the 1960s, over 30 years after the experiment had begun. During the 1950s, the focus turned to the aging of syphilis and the negative impact it had on the body.It was quite attract that syphilis caused great damage over time and would shorten the life span of the host. Even at this point in the study, when so many men had passed away and others had gone unaccounted for, the study continued. The researchers believed that the study had gone on for so long that the men were untreatable anyways, even with use of penicillin (Herried Fourtner Fourtner). To continue a research study like this and deny men treatment just on the basis of curiosity seems too unethical to be true. except all signs point to this especially when considering another research study that took place during the same time period.From 1946 to 1948, the American government performed research in Guatemala that involved intentionally infecting Guatemalan subjects with syphilis. The idea was to test the effectiveness of penicillin on contrary stages of syphilis. A very by-lineing detail is that a man by the name of Dr. John C. Cutler was involved not only in the Guatemalan study, but the Tuskegee study as well. It is strange that although Dr. Cutler was involved in some(prenominal) experiments, he did not choose to test the effectiveness of penicillin on the men who were already infected with syphilis in the Tuskegee Study.Instead, he and his colleagues chose to allow syphilis infected prostitutes to sleep with Guatemalan prisoners. This truly shows the ethical value that the researchers held and what their true motives were (Villaroasa). Dr. Cutler and the other men involved in the Tuskegee research had no interest in any pleasing of advancement with the prevention of syphilis. A kind of bureaucracy was formed that helped fuel this unethical study. Men who were involved in the Tuskegee study would be promoted to surgeon general of the U. S. Public Health Service. Dr.Cutler even obtained the position of assistant surgeon general in the PHS. Dr. Cutler defended the integrity of the study up until his death (Thomas Villarosa) It is hard to imagine that an idea that began wit h such good intentions could have turned into the catastrophe that was the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The men who conducted this study seemed to have been fueled by a strange curiosity that they masked with the idea of medical advancement. It is clear that the researchers did not view people with darker skin colors as equal, as they treated them like lab animals.It is evident and even admitted by some involved in the study that there were no advances in medicine because of the study. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male only came to a close because of a national foment release in 1972. By this time, over 370 men that had been used for research were either dead or believed to be dead. If the researchers had any true public opinion to help them, that number would have been much smaller. Not only had this study affected the men directly involved in it it affected the mens wives and their children as well.There is no questioning the goal of the experiment being to see what would happen to someone if syphilis was left untreated. The doctors could have only continued this experiment based off of some strange curiosity. It is potential that some of them may have believed what they were doing was for the better, but that is hard to imagine. Nothing was gained from the experiments in the Tuskegee Study. The only possible advancement would be the understanding of ethics for future tense research. Works 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 shell 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. V illarosa, Linda. The Guatemala Syphilis Experiments Tuskegee Roots. Theroot. com. The ticket Group, 02 Oct. 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.