I found the experiment to be very much favorable for the black men in the experiment. It is common sense that if there was no cure for it at the time, there was virtually no harm done by not doing anything about it. In fact, observing something they had no control over could only benefit science and research for an eventual cure. It is also true that the "patients" were treated for other illnesses for free. These men would never have been able to pay to go to the doctors before the experiment. So in reality, the men's life expectancy should ideally increase.
However, when penicillin was available in 1947, the men were denied of it because "They had to go on with the experiment." So let's get this straight, the point of the experiment was to observe untreated syphilis in order for you to have a better understanding of the incurable disease so that one day you can use that knowledge to cure it. But when the cure is available, it is still necessary to observe the disease? In order to do what?
At this point, the experiment not only has zero value/impact on society but it is also considered an act of racism towards blacks. Yes, in the beginning there was segregation and all of that particularly in the south but this experiment lasted up until 1972. And for those of you who don't know, the Civil Rights Movement was long gone by this time.
It started out harmless and ended up fatal.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Mustafa, I agree with you that although this study was wrong, they did have a point and reason to conduct the experiment, at first. However, when the cure of penicillin was available, their experiment held no value anymore. At that point, it was not necessary to keep observing the disease. Therefore, once penicillin became available, they were simply torturing the men. Instead, I think the scientists should have sat down and decided to continue the experiment but see how penicillin affects the men. This would have made it so the scientists could still continue their experiment, they would just have made a slight turn in the objective.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the both of you, it was a heartless act and cruel. However, I was wondering if the scientists had somehow knew that there would be a cure in the future if they would have gone about the experiment in the same way? Like were they really heartless or did they just get too caught up in experiment that they didn't want to stop?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely. There was no point to the study after the cure for Penicillin became available. The whole point to studying the effects of Syphilis on the human body would be to help develop medicines to deal with the sickness. When a cure is available though, why do you need to know how everything works with the disease, when a probable death seems to be the common ending anyways? When the cure became available, i believe there would've been enough data considering the amount of people, to produce a stopping point and cure these people, or let them know what they have to cure themselves. After all, Syphilis shouldn't even have to exist anymore if a new common medicine could produce healthy outcomes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you also 100%. However I believe they continued the experiment due to the ideology of obtaining a better and efficient drug. The idea of testing it out on blacks in particular gave the scientist the advantage, even though the civil rights movement was over, because although the civil rights movement ended before 1972 there was still racism going on in the south. Even today we still see racism a major factor in our society thus proving that racism still existed even after the civil right movement.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with what was said above, that when the testing started they had good intentions, but the way the tests were carried resulted in poor conduct. In class we have seen many examples of how experiments lead to more questions which lead to new experiements, so maybe the scientists were so committed to their job they did not fully recognize that their behavior was to be frowned upon.
ReplyDeleteI think the scientists knew exactly that what they were doing was wrong. The minute the cure was found they should have stopped the experiment. But no they just refused to give it to the patients. They were definitely in the wrong.
ReplyDelete