Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Qeustion concerning the saftey of experiments today
Judging by the time the experiment took place, the United States was going through extensive amounts of racism. However, that did not mean that scientist could take advantage of the time period and test their experiment on African American’s who at that time were not give the same amount of freedom as others were. The question that really concerns me is that if casualties had occurred and as stated by the article, “the test subject were not aware of the experiment's title”, would it be that it is still hazardous to contribute to expermiments these days?
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well it depends on what company is running the testing because some company's operate outside of our jurisdiction and know i think it is required that you sign a consent form before you take part in a experiment and i would double check the form to make sure their inst anything hidden for the testing
ReplyDeletebut the thing was that these men were uneducated, the people who lead the experiment, searched for uneducated men in alabama to make certain that they didn't ask questions and would just grab the opporunity of free medical care. We can't blame the black men either, because before their freedom was granted, it was against the law for them to be educated, they weren't even able to read. So even if they did sign a piece of paper, how are they going to understand every single word on the contract?. To make it extra difficult, the doctors/scientists could have used words that the black men where not familiar with.
ReplyDelete"The experiment, called the Tuskegee Study, began in 1932 with about 600 black men, mostly poor and uneducated, from Tuskegee, Ala., an area that had the highest syphilis rate in the nation at the time"
Well today you must sign a consent form and be told that you are being used in a scientific experiment. These Black men didn't know that they were just being observed as an experiment and that they weren't really being treated for syphilis. A question that I just thought of is who was financing this whole experiment? I mean, if these Black men were getting a free burial and free health care, who was paying for this? Was there even any monetary gain from this experiment?
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ReplyDeleteHolly, I’m not sure I know the correct answer on who was funding the experiment at that time. I can only imagine that the government granted the scientists the money to conduct experiments and simply did not follow up with this and did not check that their money was not getting abused.
ReplyDeleteTo comment on the consent form, I am aware that you must sign a consent form today however, in 1932, most of the men who were participating in the experiment we most likely illiterate and even if they were presented with a form, all they could do is sign it. These men were not able to read and unless the scientists would read it to them, which they would either not do or read it but leave out parts, these African American men has no other choice or knowledge than to sign the form and receive what they though would be a good deal with free health care.
I believe that we can come to the conclusion that the scientists were wrong in the manner that it was unmannerly inhumane to study the blacks to death. Also we can conclude that If this were to happen in present day the outcome of studing until death would cause a huge outbreak of critic.
ReplyDeleteNot only would if cause a huge outbreak of criticism Rahil, but I'm pretty sure that the scientists could be sued for what they're doing if they were to try to conduct a similar experiment today. Also, I think that they are required by law to present a waiver telling the patient exactly what they will be tested for. So going back to the original question, no I don't think that it would be hazardous to contribute to experiments these days.
ReplyDeleteIn modern day America, the test subjects, as Holly mentioned, were to sign a consent form-so any criticism would lawfully be directed at the signers of said form of consent and not the scientists. I don't think at the time there were any solid ethics laws, especially concerning African Americans who were thought to be sub-human due to the racist mindset of many of America's people, though the article says “...the test subjects were not aware of the experiment's title”, this was probably not an issue that would have come up if the scientists had been fully investigated and prosecuted, which is also because of racism and the thoughts of Africans as sub-human. Obviously today, some improvements have been made in the solidification of ethics committees and many ethical dilemmas can be solved by the average American through common sense, we just have to understand that at the time of the experiment, this was not so.
ReplyDeleteI agree With Angel8a, it would most likely be better to think about what company you were going to be cooperating with for a study as some truly are not legitimate. You would really have to trust the company to sign a consent form, making sure it is not concealing many loopholes by lawyers with too much time on their hands.. Involving yourself with a study nowadays has a much slimmer chance of causing much harm, as most people are educated and have access to better medical in case anything goes wrong anyways. Nowadays, studies are going on daily, and the research is endless. Obviously people are doing something right for scientific and medical research to continue on as positively as it has.
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