The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is the biggest example of the racist intentions that were dominant in the previous century. It is undeniably a horrible approach to expose people to suffering and die from syphilis only because they were raised from different social classes and had different skin colors. Nowadays, we do not observe similar unethical experiments happening, but what does this study tell us about the modern world? It tells us that people still hold prejudice and that things did not change dramatically in the last century.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study started in 1932 by observing 400 African Americans men from Alabama. Two hundred men with syphilis were matched with a control group with no infection to have longitudinal data on the development of the disease. The issue of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study is still considered to be central for the collective memory of the African American population (Frazier, 2020). As a starting point of ethical issues was the misleading information on the free treatment of these people out of syphilis. Instead, there was no treatment and at the same time denial of antibiotics usage that could have cured the syphilis for most of the participants. The US Health Department simply decided to put people’s life into danger to continue studies and had no intention of curing them. It can be understandable for that period of 1932, where there were low to zero ethical considerations of human life and rights. However, it is confusing how the committee of 1969 in the health department decided to continue the study and had no hesitation to provide resources for observation for the racist, unethical and humiliating experience in the liberal America.
Closer to 1972, only 74 test subjects were alive, pointing to the fact that hundreds died because of syphilis, leaving their children and lovers with similar disease. The ignorance of scientists, their denial of any consent and information forms is what defines the current structure of the ethical consideration. Regardless of the type of experiment, any participant should be informed about its content, the length and the assessment done in relation to the study. The violation of these principles is not simply an offense, but a crime that should be punishable according to laws. The second consideration was the denial of syphilis treatment and that participants had no opportunity to use hospital resources. It also stands from the point that there could have been other illnesses and diseases of which could have been prevented or cured with impact on participants’ condition. Instead, observers decided to preserve their health conditions while clearly understanding the suffering and death experience that participants will face.
This study also shows how morality becomes subjective in the scientific field. The study was published for nearly forty years. Still, there were no complaints from the scientific community concerning morality. No committee meeting saw this experiment as unethical or had challenged its implications. This shows the major flaw within the scientific community that should be strictly controlled within board members and be investigated on the topic of ethics. The rules and norms that we have now are not perfect either; there are still different considerations that should be undertaken within the racial, age, gender and socio-economic backgrounds of participants.
What this study taught the public is that morality and ethical concern should stay in the forefront of the current scientific field. There are still concerns over the medical experiments conducted in the modern times that should be under the consideration or investigation. Still, the community of scientists has no incentive to review its morality, which is in fact the essential part of any modern study.
Reference
Frazier, C. (2020). It’s more than just news: Print media, the Tuskegee syphilis study and collective memory among African Americans. Historical Sociology, 33(3), 280– 296. Web.