Carried out in the United States (U.S), t he Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment remains one of the most controversial studies to date. This infamous research was carried out between the years 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Department (Engelhardt, 2007). The study w as aimed at understanding the difference in progression rate of untreated syphilis among men of black ethnicity in Alabama. Notwithstanding, it was conducted under the pretext of availing free health care to the subjects. The study was carried out in conjunction with the Tuskegee University , one of the then prominent black colleges within the Alabama state. The experiment featured 600 subjects , 399 of whom had previously contracted Syphilis while the rest had not contracted the disease before (Engelhardt, 2007). The men were provided free medical care, free burial insurance, and meals for their participation. The conveners of the study never provided the men with penicillin even though it had been proven as the ideal Syphilis treatment. Instead, the subjects were given a placebo and were lied to that they had “bad blood” which was a popular term for anemia , fatigue, and syphilis (Engelhardt, 2007). The 40-year study is deemed as one of the most unethical public commissioned studies ever.
The study continued to perpetuate institutionalized racism through public health care. As a result, t he study had immense negative implications on the black community in Alabama as it brought about generational problems associated with Syphilis which in between the forty years had a cure. The untreated Syphilis saw many of the subjects involved die or develop complications such as blindness and other deformities. Many of the children born in the subjects’ famil ies also had congenital syphilis (Engelhardt, 2007). The study thus can be said to have had unprecedented generational implications among the Black community in Alabama. On revelation of the unethical study, many minority communities developed mistrust stemming from the Tuskegee study. It also created a racial gap that negatively impacted the public health efforts in reaching out to the minorities through other avenues. Likewise, it led to the massive spread of the disease among the black community in Tuskegee (McCallum et al., 2006). Efforts to counter HIV/AIDS were also viewed suspiciously by the Black community as another government ploy to introduce the virus to the black community. Despite a public apology in 1997 by the Clinton administration, the mistrust never quite dissipated (McCallum et al., 2006).
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The study raised a number of ethical and legal issues which to date have been incorporated in medical surveys and research. The first ethical issue that surfaced in the study was withholding of vital information. The subjects were never furnished with the proper details regarding syphilis (McCallu m et al. , 2006). They were also never informed that the research was designed to detect syphilis specifically . The subjects were further not told whether they had syphilis nor were they informed of the course of treatment. Moreover, p atient autonomy and informed consent were disregarded . The second major ethical issue emerged when the researchers withheld medication intentionally . In this case, the p atient s’ welfare was not perceived as paramount by the researchers .
The Tuskegee Experiment led to the creation of a number of modern day medical research ethics. Informed consent is one of the ethical issues that was raised . Currently, any participant in a study must be informed of the purposes and the procedures to be incorporated in a study (Curtis, 2004). A participant must append his or her agreement signature after understanding the implications of the study . Secondly, a study must avoid any unnecessary mental or physical suffering. The study involving human subjects must also be conducted if only it does not result in injury or death (Curtis, 2004). Lastly, t he Tuskegee Experiment also laid the ground for the demand that all human- related studies incorporate animal testing and verified prior knowledge.
References
Curtis, H. (2004). Getting ethics into practice: Tuskegee was bad enough. BMJ , 329 (7464), 513-513. doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7464.513
Engelhardt, H. (2007). Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment. BioSocieties , 2 (2), 275-276. doi:10.1017/s1745855207225529
McCallum, J. M., Arekere, D. M., Green, B. L., Katz, R. V., & Rivers, B. M. (2006). Awareness and Knowledge of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: Implications for Biomedical Research. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved , 17 (4), 716-733. doi:10.1353/hpu.2006.0130
