The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Its Implications - Essay Example

"The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Its Implications" is an excellent example of a paper on medical ethics.
As noted by Arthur L. Caplan in the year 1992, the Tuskegee research of untreated syphilis within the African American male is the lengthiest nontherapeutic research on human beings in curative history. Initiated in 1932 by the United States Public Health Service (USPHS), the research was allegedly intended to find out the natural development of untreated latent syphilis in selected 400 African American men within Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama. The subjects of the research who had syphilis were registered in the research, differing with the urban myth that speculates that these black men in Alabama were inoculated with the syphilis-causing virus. The subjects were enrolled with deceptive promises of an exceptional free treatment, that was essentially spinal taps done without anesthesia to research the neural effects of syphilis, and they were recruited without their consent (Heintzelman, 2)

Additionally, they received heavy metals treatment and standard therapy in 1932, but they were deprived of antibiotic treatment when it turned out clearly that penicillin was an effective and safe treatment for the ailment. When penicillin turned out to be widely accessible in the early 1950s, as the desired treatment for syphilis, this treatment was yet again suspended. On numerous occasions, the USPHS in reality wanted to prevent treatment. By giving the subjects, uniformed consents that did not speculate all the features of the study the researchers violated the protection and the rights of the subjects. Another thing was withholding the medicine for their benefits in the research while overlooking the welfare of the participants. Concisely, the researchers took advantage of a disadvantaged socioeconomic state of affairs where the subjects had gone through low levels of medical care. There was no informed consent prior to research, while the ideal treatment was withheld for the sake of research. The drugs used had long-term effects on their body systems. Poor record-keeping led to inaccurate verification of the patients who died during the research. The research is a clear indicator of the way researchers violate the subjects’ ethics during their trials.