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

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