Ethics of the Tuskegee Research Project

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Running head: Ethics of the Tuskegee Research Project

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was an infamous, unethical clinical research study carried out in Macon County of Alabama in the United States. It involved hundreds of black American men who underwent suffering for decades under the watchful eyes of white doctors. These medical researchers were supposedly seeking to study the effects of syphilis on the African male population. The peculiar aspect of these studies was that many were made aware of the sexually transmitted disease they had been contracted, and even less of its debilitating effects.

One of the ethical issues surrounding the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was that pertaining to consent. It is a widely accepted ethic among researchers, clinical personnel and scientists that consent from all human subjects targeted for scientific studies is necessary. However, in the Tuskegee Study, many of the scientists held different opinions especially since the subjects were uneducated black males. Ezekiel et al (2000) claimed that informed consent was not a requirement for scientific research. This mindset exposed the unfortunate male subjects to long periods of scientific studies, under a dangerous medical state without their consent.

Another ethical implication that arose in this scientific study was that pertaining to the ethical treatment for all human subjects. As later spelt out in the World Medical Association’s Helsinki Declaration, a protection strategy for all human subjects of scientific and/or medical research, sound medical treatment would be observed. However, in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study of the early 1930’s, six hundred black American males used as guinea pigs in a scientific study involving dangerous pathogens, in total disregard for basic ethical practice.

From a position of ethical universalism, race and education should not be the basis on which medical ethics applied. It is inhumane to subject a human being to situations as dangerous as what these unfortunate Tuskegee men had to, in the name of medical research. Living for many years with a dangerous disease that has a life threatening consequence, all in the name of trying to figure out how syphilis affects a certain race, was demonstrated as unfair, and useless even from the same scientific perspectives. Braddock (1998) observed that honesty went a long way in fostering trust between medical personnel and their patients or subjects. The same was reflected in the principles of universalism from a medical perspective.

References.Neher, W. & Sandin, P.(2007). Communicating Ethically, Character, Duties, Consequences, Relationship, Pearson Education, Inc

U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Retrieved fromHttp://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/index.htmlBraddock, Clarence H. 1998. “Truth-Telling and Withholding Information”. Ethics in

Medicine. Washington: University of Washington School of Medicine.

Http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/truth.htmlEzekiel, J. Emmanuel, David Wendler and Christine Grady. 2000. “What Makes Clinical

Research Ethical?” Journal of American Medical Association, Vol.280 No.20, May

24/31, 2000, pp.2701-2711.Fourtner, A.W., C.R. Fourtner and C.F. Herried. 2000. Bad Blood: A

Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. New York: National Centre for Case

Study Teaching in Science.