Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: Violation of All Ethical Norms

Syphilis is a chronic disease that is caused by an infection while doing sexual intercourse. It is also known as STD or Sexual Transmitted Disease that can harm the affected person's body in many different ways like getting tumors, blindness, or being paralyzed, it has a unique factor which is imitation and it imitates the symptoms of other diseases. It is a relative of the famous HIV but they have different symptoms that can be fatal for the person who gets it. 

Back in the 1930s, there was an experiment called the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment the main point of this research was to study the long-term effect or condition of Syphilis to a person who is affected if they are left untreated for several years. We all know that Syphilis can be or will be harmful to them, although there is a cure for this disease the people that are being used in this experiment are prohibited in using it. The research is focused only to the people who are black and they are hoping to find a good treatment for black people because people are racist enough to believes that the effects of Syphilis are different for white people. 

The experiment is conducted without telling the person that they have Syphilis, they were told that they are being treated for having a disease called “bad blood”, it is a term that describes many elements. The research first began in a small and poor county in Alabama, the people that are living there are uneducated and illiterate and they have no access in the medical field since they lack of education and modernization they are easily fooled by researchers. 

That time is when they first met a medical doctor in their entire lives and they convinced them to participate in a so called free medical treatment. Years had passed but no one dares to re-evaluate the information and ethics of the research until one person published it in the New York Times, and people saw what is the true goal of the research. Throughout the video there are laws and ethics concerns presented, one of the ethical principles in the video is violated, it is Informed Consent because in the experiment the participants don’t truly know what the researchers are doing to them. Although they informed them about the study but the given information are false so there is fraud happening while doing the experiment. 

The research should only lasted for six months but it lasted for forty years. To remove or minimize the ethical violation presented in the video, they should inform the participants that the experiment will involve the disease Syphilis, showed to them the procedure, and give them the time stamp on when will the research ends. They picked the county because they know that the people there are uneducated and tricked them. The whole research is a fraud but at least because of this research, we have now laws and bills protecting the research participants during ab experiment that involves things they might like.