An Exercise in Bioethics A study by Reverby (2011) was carried out in Guatemala on prisoners to search for STDs cure was ethically wrong. According to the article, there had been a series of studies that were carried out on prisoners at Guatemala between 1946 and 1948. The purpose of the study was to find possible cures and preventive measures to diseases like gonorrhea, syphilis and chancroid. The research was carried out by inoculating the STDs into the prisoners and trying various treatment options. The article demonstrates that the research had all the relevant medical agencies aware of all what was going on and that these medical agencies had provided their full support to John Cutler, who was the principal investigator of the public health service. The author claims that the different reports that were provided by the researchers involved in the study were contradictory and that it was very hard to understand the exact number of prisoners that were affected. Based on a report from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 696 individuals were exposed to syphilis, 722 to gonorrhea, and 142 to chancroid. The figures that were given represented the individuals who were subjected to sexual intercourse and inoculations with STDs. From the number provided, it was found that 14 percent of those exposed to syphilis were not treated, 0.5 percent of those exposed to gonorrhea did not recover and so did 7 percent of those with choncroid (Reverby, 2011). However, the figures were still not consistent because recounting the number of individuals affected illustrated that only 678 prisoners were completely cured of these STDs. The vagueness that was derived from the reports demonstrates that the government, through its agencies was les... ... middle of paper ... ... nursing practice because they demonstrate an irresponsible and unaccountable medical practice. Although the researchers maintain that the research was meant to benefit the citizens, there were many ethical breaches coupled with professional negligence. Ethical considerations should therefore be considered at all times in all the medical professions. The nursing practice should ensure that all the activities carried out are morally and ethically appropriate to avoid a repeat of the breaches at Guatemala. Works Cited Reverby, S. M. (2011). Still “Ethically Impossible”? The Presidential Commission’s Report on the STD Inoculation Studies in Guatemala. Retrieved from http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=5544&blogid=140 Ulmer, J. B., & Liu, M. A. (2002). Ethical Issues for Vaccines and Immunization. Nature Reviews Immunology, 2(4), 291-296.
The health care physicians were fully aware of how serious these illnesses appeared. Finally, during World War I, the progressive reformers were able to bypass the Congress in 1918 to create a bill called the Division of Venereal Diseases within the Public Health Service (PHS) (Jones, Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, 1993). As the year progressed, the reformers were preparing to start implementing the study. In 1926, health is seen as inhibiting development and a major health initiative is started. This year, syphilis is seen as a major health problem. Consequently, in 1929, an aggressive treatment approach was initiated with mercury and bismuth that caused severe complications or side effects. As the year progressed, the funds stopped supporting the development projects causing two physicians to follow-up with the untreated men trying to demonstrate a need for treatments (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
The book BAD BLOOD: THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT by James H. Jones was a very powerful compilation of years of astounding research, numerous interviews, and some very interesting positions on the ethical and moral issues associated with the study of human beings under the Public Health Service (PHS). "The Tuskegee study had nothing to do with treatment it was a nontherapeutic experiment, aimed at compiling data on the effects of the spontaneous evolution of syphilis in black males" (Jones pg. 2). Jones is very opinionated throughout the book; however, he carefully documents the foundation of those opinions with quotes from letters and medical journals. The book allowed the reader to see the experiment from different viewpoints. This was remarkable because of the initial feelings the reader has when first hearing of the experiment. In the beginning of the book, the reader will see clearly there has been wrong doing in this experiment, but somehow, Jones will transform you into asking yourself, "How could this happen for so long?"
In 1932, in the area surrounding Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Rosenwald Foundation began a survey and small treatment program for African-Americans with syphilis. Within a few months, the deepening depression, the lack of funds from the foundation, and the large number of untreated cases provided the government’s researchers with what seemed to be an unprecedented opportunity to study a seemingly almost “natural” experimentation of latent syphilis in African-American men. What had begun as a “treatment” program thus was converted by the PHS researchers, under the imprimatur of the Surgeon General and with knowledge and consent of the President of Tuskegee Institute, the medical director of the Institute’s John A. Andrew Hospital, and the Macon County public health officials, into a perspective study-The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (Jones1-15). Moreover, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which began in 1932 and was terminated in 1972 by the protest of an enraged public, constituted the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history. Since the premise on which the experiment was based did not involve finding a cure or providing treatment, the question then remains why did the study begin and why was it continued for four decades?
The providers actively decide to deceive their patients. They spend the money the government gives them on placeboes. They tell the patients that they are receiving treatment when they are in fact not. This is compounded by the fact that initially, they believe they will get funding for treatment. Miss Evers is told that those in the study will be “first in line” for treatment when an effective treatment becomes available. The first to realize that this is not, in fact, true are the two doctors, Dr. Sam Brodus and Dr. Douglas. Ten years into the study when penicillin is show as an effective cure for syphilis they make the decision not to treat the men. At this point they are no longer doing the study to buy time until they can get treatment for the men, rather they are withholding treatment to watch the men gone through the full range of symptoms that accompany syphilis including death. Still, if the need for dead bodies to autopsy was a requirement of the studies completion and a primary indicator the success of the studies main objective, then the doctors knew from the beginning that they were not buying time until they got treatment for the afflicted men. It is possible they deceived themselves to a certain extent but it is entirely clear that they deceived Miss Evers. She believed that it would only be six months to a year until the men got treatment. Then, after that, she believed for ten years that they men would be first in line once there was a proven treatment. When this became clear it was not the case she questioned the doctors. They convinced her the study had a greater purpose aside from curing the men in it. She wanted to believe it and in many ways, she forced herself to believe it. Still, when viewing the withholding of treatment as unjust she attempted to administer treatment herself. This resulted in a patient committing suicide in a
The purpose of this essay is to indicate how the needle and syringe program in prisons will benefit the Australian government as well as the wider Australian community. As well as the maintenance of NSPs can be maintained while acknowledging concerns of those against it. Needle and syringe programs (NSP) are aimed at intravenous drug users, so as to prevent and limit blood borne diseases like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. These NSP programs help drug addicts by supplying needles and also through referrals and provide education among other services. All these efforts are made to control the spread of blood borne diseases like Hepatitis and AIDS in Australian population with 872 Blood Borne viruses reported 4th quarter 2013(Quarterly Surveillance Report Notifiable Sexually Transmissible Infections and Blood-borne Viruses in Western Australia, Government of Western Australia, Department of health period ending Volume11(1) 31st of December 2013). Blood borne diseases being a major concern all around the globe and prisons being a hub for these diseases its best that NSPs are introduced in prisons.
The history of Syphilis itself is one tangled and wrapped up in the histories of other diseases, social movements, and sciences. To...
In the past, sex offenders treatment programmes included surgical treatment, pharmacological treatment and psychological treatment. Nowadays, however, surgical and pharmacological are deemed unethical and the emphasis on psychological treatment are more prominent features in the criminal justice system. Although surgical procedures were deemed unethical, it was recorded as a 1% reoffending rate which can be portrayed as remarkable. However, as citied by D. Perkins et al (1998) there was a 33% increase, after surgical treatment, in non- sexual violent crime committed by previous sex offenders.
The Prevention of Infectious Diseases in Prison (http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/florenz.html) The effects of drugs and the spread of Aids and other diseases in prisons as a direct effect of drug abuse.
The study took advantage of an oppressed and vulnerable population that was in need of medical care. Some of the many ethical concerns of this experiment were the lack of informed consent, invasion of privacy, deception of participants, physical harm, mental harm, and a lack of gain versus harm. One ethical problem in this experiment was that the benefits did not outweigh the harm to participants. At the conclusion of the study there were virtually no benefits for the participants or to the treatment of syphilis. We now have
“He asked a jail guard for a razor. He told the guard he wanted to look nice and clean-shaven for his court hearing the next day. The guard hesitated but handed Jenkins the blade. Jenkins walked to the shower in his cell. He bit the blade out of its plastic casing and stuffed an apple in his mouth to muffle his screams. Then he castrated himself and flushed his testicles down the jail cell toilet. (The Washington Post 1).” In recent years, this story of James Jenkins has stirred up controversy regarding whether or not castration is an acceptable cure and/or punishment for sex offenders. To many, it is believed to reduce sexual urges as well as reduce the cost for treatment centers. However, to others it is a violation to our Eight Amendment, no cruel or unusual punishment, and will not prevent future sex offenders from committing these crimes. The options of punishment and treatment of our justice system has changed dramatically due to science and technology advances. While our justice system has proven to provide the necessary treatment and punishment for sex offenders, more and more victims and offenders are finding that castration is not only cost friendly, but a clever solution to the war on sex crimes.
Ethical violations committed on underprivileged populations first surfaced close to 50 years ago with the discovery of the Tuskegee project. The location, a small rural town in Arkansas, and the population, consisting of black males with syphilis, would become a startling example of research gone wrong. The participants of the study were denied the available treatment in order further the goal of the research, a clear violation of the Belmont Report principle of beneficence. This same problem faces researchers today who looking for an intervention in the vertical transmission of HIV in Africa, as there is an effective protocol in industrialized nations, yet they chose to use a placebo-contro...
Based on the video Deadly Deception the following essay will analyze and summarize the information presented from the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. The legal medical experimentation of human participant must follow the regulation of informed consent, debrief, protection of participants, deception or withdrawal from the investigation, and confidentiality; whether, this conducted experiment was legitimate, for decades, is under question.
In the Tuskegee Study, individuals were mostly only informed that they had “bad blood,” as the communication of the details of syphilis in a way that the medical community understood it was thought to be too complicated or scary for them to understand, according to the “Miss Evers’ Boys” film (Woodard). Rather than giving them insufficient information about their medical condition, taking the time to educate them on what was presently known about their medical state in a way that they understood was arguably the more ethically responsible
When penicillin was discovered in 1940 and was the only cure for syphilis at that time. The participants form Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment were excluded from many campaigns that were taking place in Macon County, Alabama to eliminate venereal diseases (Person Education, 2007). This experiment lasted forty years and by the end 28 of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis (info please, 2007). The directors of this experiment used ethical, interpersona...
Despite the fact that the experimental proof is not categorical to the efficiency of sexual offender treatment, recent methodical appraisals and examinations come out clear that certain approaches