Tuskegee Experiments

Medical research involving human subjects is historically riddled with unethical experiments leading to harmful and even fatal consequences for participants. In order to avoid this in modern medical research, a system of medical ethics has been created. To properly review these standards for experimentation proposals, Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) were established in the United States. Although this system of ethics and review processes is tedious and difficult to appeal to, it is fundamental to ensuring the safety of all human participants consenting to medical research. Continuing medical research on human subjects, while conforming to the medical ethics and review processes deemed necessary by the government and the Internal Review

Boards, is imperative to protecting human participants involved in experimentation. Historical events, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and the Nazi Experiments both prove the necessity of medical ethics and IRBs in the United States. The medical ethics laws, review processes, and oversight of Institutional Review Boards are all essential to safeguarding from the unethical treatment of human participants. Without utilizing this system of defense for human subjects, unethical experiments will continue in the present and future of the United States.
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is a prime example of the consequences of not obeying medical ethics laws, which have been established in the United States.

When the study began the men involved in the study were misled and not given enough information to provide legal consent to the experimentation. They were told they were being treated for “Bad blood” (“The Tuskegee Timeline” 2016). James H. Jones, author of an article called “Bad Blood,” stated, “The Tuskegee Study had nothing to do with treatment. No new drugs were tested; neither was any effort made to establish the efficacy of old forms of treatment.” (Coleman, et al. 41). The participants were not treated to cure their illness, they were not given the option to leave the study, and when penicillin became the drug commonly used to treat syphilis, the participants were not given the drug as a treatment. Coleman states, “…However, they deliberately denied treatment to the men with syphilis and they went to extreme lengths to ensure they would not receive therapy from other sources” (Coleman, et al. 41). The study was only supposed to last for six months, but instead lasted for forty years, beginning in 1932 and ending in 1972. The men who participated in the study were misled, left untreated and were unable to leave the study when a working cure for syphilis had been found. The way these men were treated is the very definition of unethical and thus the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment serves as an important historical example of the necessity of medical ethics and IRB review processes, even though they may seem

tedious.
Historically, the Holocaust is seen as one of the most tragic events in history. Although it is generally considered to be a time of horrendous treatment of humankind, the most pivotal and upsetting events to occur during the Holocaust were the Nazi Experiments. The Nazi Experiments were a series of medical research studies done on prisoners of concentration camps in order to further knowledge in multiple medical fields and find cures for illnesses and infections which the German military faced (Coleman et al. 16). These experiments were done without the consent of the participants, which consisted of camp prisoners that were Jewish, homosexual, and even prisoners of war. Not only were the prisoners forced to participate, they were physically harmed or even killed by German doctors who wanted to further their experimental studies. These experiments ranged from testing cures for malaria to breaking bones of prisoners in order to test reconstruction surgery methods being developed. The victims of these inhumane experiments suffered severe injuries, illnesses, and even faced death after experiencing the torturous conditions that they were subjected to. The immoral treatment of prisoners within the camps serves as a warning against continuing human participation in medical research without Institutional Review Boards and standard medical ethics.