Tuskegee Syphilis Case Study

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In 1932 the U.S Public Health Services (USPHS) started an experiment in Macon County, Alabama, to determine the natural course of untreated, latent syphilis in black males. For those whom might not know syphilis, is a chronic bacterial disease that is contracted chiefly by infection during sexual intercourse, but also congenitally by infection of a developing fetus . Leaving syphilis untreated might lead to life threating problems or death. The problem with this study is that the USPHS voluntarily made the decision to deny 400 syphilitic black males treatment as well as endanger 200 healthy uninfected men. The USPHS lied to these men by telling them they were receiving free special medical treatment for “bad blood,” a term used locally to describe someone with syphilis. But in reality they had to endure spinal taps done without anesthesia to study the neurological …show more content…

Brandt’s research article, “Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study” the USPHS continuously discriminated, tortured, and involuntarily experimented on over 600 black males. The original study was even called the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male." This study was not only unethical but also extremely disrespectful and prejudiced, not to mention racist to the black community living in Macon County, Alabama. Consequently, scientists and doctors contributing to the Tuskegee Research were just as discriminative and stereotypical as its research study. Most of their view points and hypothesis related on loose strings based on assumptions. Such as “The Negro community in America is doomed due to being particularly prone to disease, vice, and crime” along with “Black American’s cannot be helped by education or philanthropy” This not only helps to outline the personal views of such “scientist and doctors” performing this study but it also aligns the sort of path the Tuskegee research took during its forty years of

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