Miss Evers Boys Essay

The Tuskegee Syphilis study was unethical because the participants did not give consent to be tested on, the scientists targeted only black men, and many participants died. The experiment was unethical because the participants did not give consent to be test subjects of this study. The participants were promised free healthcare without their knowledge of the experiment. “The subjects of the experiment were observed over a period of several decades, but the nearly 400 men who were infected were not informed of their diagnosis.

During the year of 1932 in Tuskegee, Macon Country, Alabama in the United States Nurse Eunice Evers became a part of The Tuskegee Experiment Study created by the United States Public Health Service (USPHS). The movie Miss Evers’ Boys portrays the events that led up to the creation of The Tuskegee Experiment Study and what followed afterwards from Nurse Evers’ portray. There were numeral ethical violations that took place with the experiment itself and what occurred throughout the years the study was still being carried out. At the beginning of the study there were no proven treatments for the disease.

The children are put in danger in order to advance research on the effects of lead. African-Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth century were looked at as less than human beings. The doctors did not believe they needed to get consent about the dangers of performing experiments on African-Americans as unethical. For example, the Tuskegee experiment was unethical, but the doctors wanted to find the effects of syphilis, but with black men and women as test subjects to benefit Caucasians. The Lacks family did not get to understand the significance of what their beloved family member meant to future development of scientist.

Many of the speakers are frustrated at the fact that systemic racism is still very much alive, yet they remain professional. They discuss issues and problems in detail to give the audience a full understanding of the topic. Because of this and their desire to be direct, glossing-over details and censorship does not occur. The documentary has two main points of discussion: the history of oppression in America, and the prison industrial-complex. During the first half of the film, wherein the speakers discuss the discrimination of African-Americans, the tone used is factual and [smth].

The Tuskegee experimental study, which was carried out for a total of forty years from 1932 to 1972, remains one of the biggest and indeed one of the most disgusting scandals in the history of American medicine. More than 400 black men died in Alabama as public officials and doctors watched (Brandt, 1978). The Tuskegee scandal was a scientific experiment which was done using unethical ways and methods that in the end did not result in the production of new information on syphilis. The cure of the subjects who participated in the study was withheld without their knowledge, and consequently, many people died while others were left with permanent disabilities. Newborns were not spared either, and many of them were infected with congenital syphilis.

Thus, this reaction paper highlights some of the ethical principles that were violated in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Even during the recruitment phase, the people in charge of the study violated ethical principles by lying to potential participants (black men). They distributed flyers informing individuals that they would be treated for syphilis if they participated in the study. The participants had no idea that taking part in the study would endanger their lives.

Brandt, in his essay Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, “To preserve the subjects ' interest, Vonderlehr gave most of the men mercurial ointment, a noneffective drug … This required Vonderlehr to write frequently to Clark requesting supplies. He feared the experiment would fail if the men were not offered treatment.” The test subjects were illiterate sharecroppers who thought they were receiving medicine for the so called “bad blood”. Vonderlehr writes “it would have been impossible to continue without the free distribution of drugs because of the unfavorable impression made on the negro.”

A study known as "The Tuskegee Study" S. (2015, July 31) was conducted for forty years (U.S. Public Health, 2017), on the progression of untreated Syphilis in the African American population. It was believed that their bodies were inferior to whites and that the disease would act differently in their bodies. This author feels that the study was unnecessary, heartbreaking and unethical. The Belmont Report lists "respect for others, beneficence, and justice" (Protections, O. F.,2016) as the essentials of ethics.

The Tuskegee study of Untreated Syphilis began in 1932, mainly designed to determine the history of untreated latent syphilis on 600 African American men in Tuskegee, Alabama. 201 out of 600 men were non-syphilitic just unknowingly involved in the study as a control group This study is known to be “the most infamous biomedical research study in the U.S history”. Most of these men had never visited a doctor and they had no idea what illness they had. All of the men agreed to be a participant thinking they were being treated for “bad blood” and plus they were given free medical care and meals.

For 40 years, many African Americans in Alabama that were infected with syphilis were left untreated as part of an experiment to determine how “different” syphilis affected blacks. This was an orchestrated even by the United States Public Health Service, and other organizations; whose job is to protect the public. Syphilis is a highly contagious infection spread by sexual contact. If untreated, it can cause bone and dental deformations, deafness, blindness, heart disease and deterioration of the central nervous system. The participants, mostly made of poor, uneducated black men, were lured into the program with false pretenses, not advising of the infections they carried (Heller).

The Tuskegee Syphilis Case Study is an important historical event that has influenced current ethical guidelines and regulations with the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This Case Study was a prime example of how the United States violated the rights and welfare of human test subjects. This study was designed in the year 1932, by the United States Public Health Service in Tuskegee, Alabama. Which studied black males with a natural history of untreated syphilis in the early 1930s this case study was supposed to last a few months but ended up becoming a long-term study until the year 1972. This study enrolled 600 African-American men; 400 with the disease and 200 as a control group.

In the film, Miss Evers' Boys, Eunice Evers demonstrates some unethical behavior when her and a fellow colleague begin a study on a group of African American men who suffer from syphilis. Prior to their study on the men, there had been a similar study conducted on white men. Doctor Brodus and Miss Evers were trying to prove to the people that syphilis can affect anyone. They began the study by testing the African American men for the disease, then provided them with treatment. Miss Evers provided them with minimal information about the disease, in order to get them to participate in the study.

During it 's two hour runtime it depicts the both the hardships of pioneering in uncharted territories of medicine as well as the racial discrimination and segregation of America in the 40s. It is a mirror of both great capacity for good and progress as well as inhumane detachment from one another based on race such as with Vivian Thomas or even gender such as with Dr. Helen Taussig. The struggle to advance the discipline of medicine with all cost and at the same time bringing us closer together as human beings under the same purpose no matter the differences is worthy of discussing. The ethical dilemmas depicted on the movie can be divided in two categories; social and medical.

This study was referred to as the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis

Black women are treated less than because of their ascribed traits, their gender and race, and are often dehumanized and belittled throughout the movie. They are treated like slaves and are seen as easily disposable. There are several moments throughout the film that show the racial, gender, and class inequalities. These moments also show exploitation and opportunity hoarding. The Help also explains historical context of the inequality that occurred during that time period.