As humans, we are all aware that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has judged upon someone's abilities, back round, and traits based off of their ethnicities at least once during their lifetime. This form of judgment that can often lead to cruelty is what we define as "racism". For forty years, an experiment called. 'The Tuskegee Study,' that was only supposed to last for about six months, dragged along its dark path up to the point where doctors, general surgeons, and nurses decided it was okay to perform dangerous, life threatening studies upon poor black males. These colored men we're living in one of the poorest towns of Alabama and had the highest rate of syphilis during that time period. Clueless of what type of harm the experiment would bring upon them, about 700 males participated over the course of forty years thinking that they were about to get treated for "Bad Blood" and receive medical benefits due to their cooperation. In one of the articles, it was mentioned that most of these men (whom had families) were eager at the thought of free medical exams that as long as they were eligible for the experiment, they immediately went over to participate.
Here's where the problem ignited. Doctors and surgeons' goal in the beginning of the experiment was to find a cure for the black community who were constantly suffereing from syphilis. However, as the cost for further continuing the study increased, they were no longer able to afford drugs that might be able to cure them of the disease. In turn, these people who had no right in making the decisions on their own about who lives or dies, made up their mind that they will continue the study as an experiment to see the effects of syphilis in these poor men rather than trying to treat it. Even after penicillin was discovered as the first and foremost cure for syphilis, doctors and nurses did everything to make sure the participants wouldn't be able to get a hold of the drug. As much as this was their desire to see the effects of the disease, it is considered murder and their race had played a part in their decision making process. As soon as the official decided it was ok for them to keep secrets from the participants and allow the disease to persist in some of the individuals, they were determined to see the dying process out of curiousity. As one of the PHS officials said, this experiment honestly didn't do anything to get them closer to their original goal. Now that we know that the experiment could've been terminated at the start when medicine was no longer purchasable, it's time to determine what was truly morally wrong about this experiment. Did the officials that carried out this experiment truly further carry on this experiment thinking it would benefit future studies by looking at the effects of syphilis in patients and recording down useful information or was this unethical experiment carried out for too long by heartless people knowing that it would not greatly benefit medical research? Also, think about if the officials would've made a more 'moral' decision if the same problem aroused in a rich, white community.
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I think the points you bring up are excellent. I can't say that these scientists were so called "heartless" I just think they may have just wanted to go on and on, maybe getting a little to indulgent in their work. I do think that the racism did coincide with the fact that they kept the experimentation going.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Emily that the doctors were too indulgent in their work but, to play devils advocate, I'm wondering if that's a bad thing. Christine you said that, "Even after penicillin was discovered as the first and foremost cure for syphilis, doctors and nurses did everything to make sure the participants wouldn't be able to get a hold of the drug." Now a days we know that bacteria and viruses can mutate so that antibiotics and other drugs don't fight them anymore. And penicillin is so overused and prescribed it doesn't treat anything anymore. I'm wondering if it really was cruel and heartless of the doctors to continue to study the men after penicillin was discovered because their observations could lead to us finding a new drug that works against syphilis now that penicillin does not.
ReplyDeleteSarah, I do no think that if the doctors continued to study the men after penicillin was discovered their observations could lead to us finding a new drug that works against syphilis now that penicillin does not because by now the disease has mutated. As you mentioned earlier, “Now a days we know that bacteria and viruses can mutate so that antibiotics and other drugs don't fight them anymore.” How would the observations of the old form of the disease help to fight against the new mutations? Also to address one of Christine’s questions, I think officials would have made a more 'moral' decision if the same problem aroused in a rich white community because of the time period, the whites would have been more educated and informed so taking advantage of the rich white community would have been more difficult and officials would have faced great opposition.
ReplyDeletei think that if they were looking for the effects of the case they could of gone with a different way by studying a already dead body(s) and compare them and the supposed areas that were afflicted. and it was an immoral or at least not scientific, because they should have tried the drug on them or ended the trial before to many died.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the experiment was carried on two long as well as being unethical. The real question is if this was a so called purposeful experiment why did they not let the patients receive penicillin when it was available? Wasn't their overall goal to help cure the sick men? Or were they really trying to kill them off?
ReplyDeletegoing off of what nicole said i think they wernt trying to cure the sick men there were just looking for a cure useing the black people as there guinea pigs then let them die off. All the cure would be used for was the white people so they could be safe and not care about the other people. So i feel that they were just trying to kill them off.
ReplyDeleteJudging by the time period i believe that if it was done at a white neighborhood the experiment may of not continued until death, becuase the sceintests would be treathen by law. By doing it on blacks the sientists may think that they have an edge when coming against the law.
ReplyDeleteI agree with rahil because if this was done to white people there would be some major lawsuits with these scientists after they died. But they would have received the penicillin because of the time period and how whites were viewed versus blacks.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what Nicole and Rahil said regarding the consequences the scientists would've received if this experiment had been performed within the white community. It's interesting that none of the participants were even part of the poor white neighborhood. It is more than obvious to come to the conclusion that no matter what race, there is nothing signicantly different between poor white males and poor black males. They live similar life styles. So if they were going to test on "poor" black males, why not also test on the low class white citizens?
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the only plausible answer for why they used poor uneducated black men is because they knew they could get away with their inhumane experiment. If they were as racist as some of us are saying then it seems natural that they would continue the experiments on the black men. What I want to know is what the scientists were actually doing because it seems to me that they were just watching black men die of syphilis. They never even tried a drug on any of the men to try to cure them because they were just studying the "effects of Bad Blood". Do you really think the scientists were actually trying to cure syphilis?
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