Friday, September 3, 2010
The Tuskegee study parallels the studies done during the holocaust by the Nazis as both studies were targeted towards specific groups without with out consent and occurred during a racist period. For example, the Tuskegee Study was directed towards blacks and the Nazi’s targeted Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally retarded. According to Pbs.org, the Nazis “performed these studies without the consent of the victims, who suffered indescribable pain, mutilation, permanent disability, or in many cases death as a result” similarly to the victims of the Tuskegee study who not only suffered pain and death but also infected their wives and children. According to infoplease.com, “The PHS did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the experiments performed by Nazi doctors on Jewish victims during World War II. Yet the PHS offered the same defense offered at the Nuremberg trials — they were just carrying out orders.” The article continues to add, “A black nurse, Eunice Rivers, was a central figure in the experiment for most of its forty years” and she claimed, “we were taught that we never diagnosed, we never prescribed; we followed the doctor's instructions!” Are the people involved in the experiment equally as guilty as the Nazis or are they justified for following the doctor’s orders? If so to what extent should the people be held accountable for their participation or to what extent should they follow orders?
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Intresting point, it reminds me of a interesting experiment called the milgrams experiment. The experiment was done to see why the nazi soliders followed hitlers order. The procedure was simple random people were called in to a reaserch lab where they were asked to press a button that would shock the other human test subject (there is a solid wall between them). As you kept pressing the bottom higher voltage struck the other human. After pressing the button they would here a scream. (However the scream is fake and noone is hurt.) As the reasercher kept telling the test subject to press higher bottons the test subject would do as told. The study's clearly show that it is not the test subjects fault.
ReplyDeleteThey actually reacted the experiment in the u.k 3 years ago its pretty cool. You can watch it if you want.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6GxIuljT3w
I agree with Gloria's point in that the Tuskegee experiment is almost a repetition of what the Nazi's did to the Jews during World War II. Before entering gas chambers, Jews were told that they were going to be taking a "shower" and all clothes/belongings of theirs should be placed inside little lockers with their names on it. Now i'm not exactly sure if they put their belongings in a box or a locker, but the important thing is that these people BELIEVED they were simply taking a shower and expecting to come back out alive because the soldiers emphasized the fact that they had to put their names on their stuff in order to find it easily after coming out of the shower. I find this very disturbing apart from all the other grotesque crimes they committed due to the fact that the soldiers played out their part so well that they were able to earn the trust of the victims.It was very disturbing to me that these people not only had to die a painful death but trusted their murderers who had poker faces on the entire time. In turn, nurses who are trained to not only follow doctor's orders but treat sick people should have the ability to decide for themselves whether a certain order is okay to carry out or not. To answer Gloria's question, "Are the people involved in the experiment equally as guilty as the Nazis or are they justified for following the doctor’s orders," I believe that the people involved in the experiment are just as guilty as the soldiers from WWII because they didn't take the moral action as a professional to stop a harmful experiment. Most importantly, individuals like the black nurse, Eunice Rivers, lied to the faces of all her experiment volunteers and treating them with compassion so they would never be able to guess her true identity.
ReplyDeleteI like this passage, and I would have to say that the nurses conducting the study should reach a point where they know they are doing something morally wrong. By just blindly following orders from those above you, you become no better than the person who conceived the orders because you are not questioning them for what they are. This is the same issue I have discussed in many a history class about the holocaust. It was fair to say that all nazi soldiers were just as much at fault as the leaders were. No one had the guts to step up and admit they were doing something wrong, so others suffered because of these cowards.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Christine when she said, "I believe that the people involved in the experiment are just as guilty as the soldiers from WWII because they didn't take the moral action as a professional to stop a harmful experiment." To take it one step further, the nurses were just as much at fault as the doctors because they didn't just fail to take the moral action, they failed to recognize it. And even if they did recognize how immoral the situation was they denied it when faced with truth of what was going on. This makes them no better than the Nazis during WWII.
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