Tuskegee Syphilis

Can you imagine being forced into an unethical experiment? Co-operating with the belief that maybe your illness would be dealt with . Going home to your families with little to no treatment done and being forced to explain the condition you're in? Well I can, this is one of the many the nightmares haunting my ancestors. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study started operations in the year 1932 and ended in the year 1972 ( 35 years after penicillin was discovered to be the proper treatment for syphilis in 1947 ). The experiment violated each of the six APA guidelines of research when experimenting on humans. Which are the following are the following: freedom from coercion, informed consent, limited deception, adequate debriefing, confidentiality and diversity. In this essay I am going to identify and explain exactly how this experiment violated the APA guidelines for research.

Freedom of coercion was not practiced during this experiment Instead, the subjects were in a way forced to join, then later intimidated into compliance. Under the freedom of coercion rule, no patient shall be forced, intimidated or manipulated into compliance. However these Tuskeege scientist tricked a great sum of uneducated African-American males into believing that they were to be given free medical health services. Also, letters were sent out to the patients, by the doctors, for the patients to continue to follow up the "Special Free Treatment", which were really spinal taps to study the effects of syphilis on a human overtime. A requirement of being a subject was to have an autopsy after death in order to obtain the funeral benefits. The patients were robbed of their freedom, and of their much deserving understanding of what was actually being taken place. Instead the subjects were used as examples, or test dummies. The scientist used the subjects as guinea pigs to note the long term effects of syphilis on a human being. Without any knowledge of the true intentions of the scientist, patients undergone the experiments believing they were to be treated as a result. In a way these helpless African American males were forced to undergo the procedures taken as their sickness worsened. For some, undergoing this experiment was their last hope for survival.

Being that they weren't informed accurately on the procedures of the experiment, they actually consented to an experiment different from what was conducted. Therefore this violated the second guideline for research, " Informed Consent". The Informed Consent code of ethics states that The men were told that they were getting free health care from the U.S. government and were told that they to be treated for "Bad Blood ", a term used to describe several illnesses, syphilis one of them. I can't understand how people could consent to being treated, but end up the experimental test dummies for informational studies .. this to me was completely unlawful, set aside from inhumane.