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Tuskegee Experiment
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Tuskegee Experiment: The Infamous Syphilis Study
The study was started at the time there was no proper treatment for Syphilis. The majority of participants were Negro males who did not visit any doctor for the whole of their lives. They were involved in the study on the promise of free medical treatment. The participants were also ill-informed about the true nature of this experiment. Despite the fact that there was a medicine for the disease, doctors kept the patients on aspirin and other mineral supplements. Participants were not allowed to take any medical treatment from the local physicians and experiments were undertaken in a particular institute. The first voice against the study was raised in the mid – 1960s by a physician from the PHS. In 1972, it was published in the press. An official statement of apology was released by the US president Bill Clinton in 1997 for undertaking the study without the consent and information of participants.
The major ethical issue in this study was that the medicine had already been prepared but was not used by the physicians. This put the lives of the participants at stake. Some participants died, some others had other serious health issues. The other ethical issue was the fact that participants were not told the reality of this experiment. This would not have been effective because they had not visited a doctor in their lives. However it was ethical duty of the physicians to let them know what is going to be done with them. The society as a whole was also involved in this unethical act because the request of a physician to investigate this study was denied. The impact of this study was that there was a thought of distrust in the African Americans. The investigation resulted in establishment of centers of bioethics in some universities.
Reference
BIBLIOGRAPHY Nix, l. (2017, May 16). https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study. Retrieved from https://www.history.com: https://www.history.com/news/the-infamous-40-year-tuskegee-study
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